


Nothing But The Rain

by theloverneverleaves



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chuck Lives, Gen, Human Kaiju, M/M, Made Up Science, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 01:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1710569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloverneverleaves/pseuds/theloverneverleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Hansen has always hated the Kaiju, along with everything they stand for. It's just a fact of life. And with the end of the world approaching, he can't help but hate them just a little bit more. But when Raleigh Becket returns to the PPDC, he ends up bringing along more than just his piloting skills. </p>
<p>The end of the world is coming, but when the world discovers the Kaiju can look human too, they realise there's more to the alien invaders than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But The Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Pacific Rim Mini Bang challenge, and has some beautiful accompanying artwork by [Siriniel](http://siriniel.tumblr.com/post/87230543347/from-nothing-but-the-rain-by-karaathrace-for-the). It's been a wild ride, hope you guys enjoy the end result!

There are three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and the fact that Chuck Hansen will always hate the Kaiju.

A lot of people have reason to hate the Kaiju, especially these days. Seven years of war will do that to a society. Whilst some pilots joined up for the greater good, for the lure of being a hero, to do something worthwhile, for Chuck it was only ever personal. He lost his whole family to the Kaiju. His mother in Sydney, his father and his uncle to Lucky Seven, and even years later, with Lucky Seven long gone, his uncle was nowhere to be found. All he had left was his father. And if that wasn't a complete disaster, then what was?

The one constant he had left in his life was Striker, and it wasn't something he was particularly upset about. Chuck had been around Jaegers for most of his life; the huge metal machines that could fight back against a force of nature like the Kaiju. Striker was _his_ in every possible way. Striker had been his since the day she was launched, and that was the greatest gift he'd ever had. Because unlike most twenty somethings ravaged by war, Chuck had the chance to fight back. He had been given the chance to win. And that was something. Especially in a time when Jaeger pilots were getting rarer by the second. Being one of the last ones standing... well he'd be lying if he said he didn't take any pride in it. He was proud of who he was, what he did. He was proud of the ten Kaiju heads stamped onto his armour, his jacket. He was proud of what he'd achieved. He was the youngest pilot in the history of the PPDC and Striker held the record for the highest number of kills. Of course he was proud of that.

If he wasn't proud of that, then what would he have left?

And maybe it was pride that got in the way of it all, because pride demanded that they do the mission alone. They had a plan to hit the breach, and they had three active Jaegers. That was enough. That was more than enough. They didn't need four. Most of all they didn't need washed up has been cowardly assholes like Raleigh Becket coming back like a prodigal son and guarding their flank because they were better than that, goddammit. How was he supposed to trust a guy like that to watch his six? Raleigh Becket got his brother killed, his Jaeger trashed and then fled the scene of the crime. How was that the sort of guy you brought back to swoop in at the final moment and be a hero for the world?

Maybe it was the press potential. They'd always gone crazy for the typical All American hero personas the Beckets had so perfectly portrayed. They couldn't have designed it better themselves - blonde hair, blue eyes, big stupid smiles with their big stupid laughs and perfect washboard abs and…

No. He hadn't been looking. Of course not. It wasn't like he could be blamed for a childhood fascination with Gipsy Danger. He'd been a kid. He hadn't known what would happen. None of them did.

And yet his father still had the guts to ask Becket to _dinner_. If that wasn't a disgrace, he didn't know what was. They were lucky he had held himself back. They were lucky he hadn't punched Becket in the face right then and there. (Really, the jerk would have deserved it.) And it wasn't because Chuck felt like he'd been replaced, because that would be ridiculous. It was because Becket didn't deserve a second chance like that, because they shouldn't - no, _don't_ need him, and it was because somewhere deep down inside, Chuck Hansen was still the little kid with a broken heart because Gipsy Danger wasn't invincible like she was supposed to be.

Not that he'd ever admit to that.

Dinner, however, becomes a regular issue as Becket starts searching for some perfect soulmate in the pile of new kids that are just lying around waiting for something to happen, since they've got no money left for new Jaegers, and no time to build one, by all estimations Chuck had heard. And maybe it was some sort of idle curiosity that made him go and watch, but he did. He watched. And well. At least Becket hadn't forgotten everything. That's something, right?

The asshole ended up with Mako, though. He didn't deserve her. After all, she was just about the only one that was still trying to be his friend, and whilst he kept pushing her away, the attempt alone was admirable. But it was more than that. She was as smart as she was strong, and she was a good person. The sort of person Chuck sometimes wished he could be, on the very darkest nights when he'd been left alone with his thoughts a little too long. And Becket didn't deserve her.

The tests were set for tomorrow. Chuck didn't know what it was that lured him to the hanger bay, to stand at the top of the scaffolding they use for maintenance and look down. Only this time, it wasn't Striker he was looking at. It was Gipsy. If there was one single thing in the world that represented his entire youth in one go, it was Gipsy Danger. And there she was. The old rust bucket, brought back to life. He could only hope the universe wasn't trying to tell him something. That way he wouldn't need to tell it to fuck off.

He'd been alone with his thoughts long enough to stop worrying about where he was for a little while, but there was a sharp bark behind him, and it was enough to remind him of the outside world. He turned, and sure enough, there was Max. Chuck had been sure he'd left him in his room, but he must have gotten out somehow. Maybe Herc had left the door open or something. Wouldn't be the first time. But unlike most of times when Max got loose and came looking for his owner, this time, he'd brought a friend.

Fucking perfect.

Chuck ignored him, pointedly crouching down to fuss over his dog, glancing up at the tower of All American Hero that had appeared like Max was the one taking him for a walk. Wouldn't be too surprising, actually. Not impossible, either.

"Found him in one of the hallways. Didn't want him wandering into the Jaeger Bay or something," Raleigh stated softly, forgoing a hello or anything close to it. Chuck stood. He didn't really want to give Becket much of an advantage right now, and at least they were practically the same height. Maybe Becket was an inch taller, but Chuck was willing to overlook that. For now.

His pride wasn't so easily wounded, don't be stupid.

"Yeah, thanks," Chuck replied frostily, his eyes drifting to Max, who was sitting at his feet, looking like he'd just found a year's supply of kibble. Christ. If he didn't know better, he'd say his dog was being a vindictive little shit and had deliberately brought Raleigh to him, but that would be completely ridiculous. Wouldn't it?

Raleigh turned to leave, but he seemed to think better of it, turning back at the last moment. Chuck raised an eyebrow, holding his ground.

"Are we going to have a problem here?" Raleigh asked. Chuck was almost proud that he noticed.

"Problem? What problem?" he stated, because admitting it would be admitting that he cared about what the hell Raleigh Becket did around this place. He didn't. Not even a little bit. Raleigh shook his head slightly, turning away again.

"Forget it," he mumbled, almost to himself. Chuck exhaled. Because if he was going to say anything, he might as well say it now.

"Look, Becket, you used to be a good pilot. And that's great, you know, it's bloody fantastic. But that was five years ago, mate. Just stay out of my way, and maybe you'll get out of this in one piece."

"What the hell is your problem?" Raleigh demanded. Chuck blinked for a second, because that wasn't exactly the response he expected.

"The hell are you talking about, old man?" Chuck retorted sharply.

"You've clearly got some issue here, Hansen. So come on. Spit it out. I'd love to hear it."

Chuck stepped closer, snarling slightly. He couldn't resist. The funniest part of it all was that Max was still sitting there like he was waiting for that year's supply of kibble. Chuck loved his dog, but sometimes, Max could be a real idiot.

"What, you think you're something special, Ray? You ran away. You cut and left. Now, Pentecost seems to think we need you back in this, and that's great. His big shiny plan and all, but at the end of it all, I'm the one that's going to be risking his neck down there. So don't screw it up. Because unlike everyone else around here, I'm not rolling out the red carpet for your less than triumphant return."

Raleigh's jaw tightened like he was thinking about throwing a punch or three.

"It's Raleigh," he muttered darkly before turning away. Chuck could tell he hit a nerve in there somewhere. No way that was all Becket had to say for himself. And unlike some people, when Chuck saw weakness, he couldn't help but tear it apart.

"What, Becket? Don't like hearing the truth? You're not a hero. You sacrificed that the same day you sacrificed your brother," he pushed dryly. He could see Raleigh's shoulders tighten, his fingers curling into his palm as the tendons stood out across the back of his hand. That was definitely a nerve. But not the right one. Because Becket walked away all the same.

Max barked indignantly, and when Chuck looked down at his dog, Max had gone from triumphant to grumpy. Chuck sighed, crouching down to rub him behind the ears, just how he liked it. "Just because you think he's great doesn't mean I do, buddy. Not anymore," he murmured softly to his dog, because sometimes Max was the only one he could talk to. Sometimes, Max was the only one that was going to understand.

Max pawed at his knee insistently. If he didn't know better he'd say his dog was trying to get him to make friends.

 

 

 

The test, it was fair to say, was a complete and utter nightmare. It was some sort of sick curiosity that had him watching the train wreck in action, and just as well, since there was no question of letting the test continue. Becket was only confirming his worst fears. He couldn't do this. Not anymore. Not with Mako, anyway. Mako... she deserved so much better. She was better than all of this and Chuck knew it, but somehow, when he walked out of Stacker's office, all he saw was red.

And then Raleigh punched him. After making a jab at Mako, which was interesting to say the least. Maybe he had a thing for her. The Drift could do that, but they'd only known each other for a few days. It'd be pretty fast, even given a Drift. And hell, if he liked her so much, how the hell did he let her get into that state in Gipsy? For the great Raleigh Becket, he was less than impressed. The asshole used to be his hero, and now look at him. Chuck guessed that was why they said you really shouldn't meet your heroes. It would have been better if he'd stayed away from Raleigh Becket altogether.

But Becket was the hero that was going to save them all, and he was just the dumb kid with an attitude problem.

What rankled more was that his father needed to come and rescue him, and despite the fact that Chuck ripped away from his old man like a bat out of hell, he didn't get much alone time. He supposed it was his own fault for going back to his room. That was predictable, safe. People could find him if he was in his room. But Max was there and right now, he just needed his dog. So when Herc came in, he found his son sitting on the bed, an icepack clutched to his nose, and a lump of bulldog in his lap. Max looked sad, with the big eyes only he seemed to be able to pull off with such passion. It was not a pretty sight.

Chuck looked up, frowning. He might have stood, but there was a bulldog in the way, and he didn't have the heart to move him. "What do you want, old man?"

"Hey, don't call me that," Herc grumbled. Chuck rolled his eyes.

"What do you want?" he repeated pointedly.

"Just wanted to check you were okay," Herc stated. He kept his distance, and his tone was steady, calm, much like one you would use if you were talking to a frightened animal. Chuck didn't really appreciate the inference. He wasn't wounded, he could look after himself. Christ, he got into a fistfight, it wasn't like it was the first time. Probably not the last either.

"I'm fine. You can go now," Chuck replied, pointedly looking away. He could hear Herc sighing across the room. His father was thinking too loudly for his liking. He was working up to saying something deep and meaningful, Chuck could tell. Thing was, he didn't really want to hear it. He'd never wanted to hear it from his father, because his father's word lost all credibility with him a long time ago. Roughly the same time he stopped being a father and started being a Jaeger pilot, actually.

"Look, I know you and Raleigh don't get along..."

"Understatement of the century," Chuck interjected bitterly.

"But we're going to have to do this drop together. You used to love Gipsy," Herc pressed on. Chuck shifted, getting to his feet as Max huffed indignantly at the movement. Chuck stood, glaring at his father past the icepack he was still clutching to his nose.

"Yeah. Used to. Past tense. That was before we all worked out how much of a wanker her pilot is," Chuck hissed.

"He's not a bad guy, son," Herc pressed.

"No, he just killed his co-pilot and ran away to the ass end of nowhere, _Dad_. What kind of person does that?" Chuck pressed, putting more venom into his words than necessary. There was a lot unsaid. The bond between Jaeger pilots was sacred. You weren't meant to die apart. You were a team. You died together, or not at all. There were no halves in a whole. Part of him loathed having that sort of bond with his father. Part of him knew there never could have been anyone else. And then there was the other unspoken statement that went along with absent Jaeger pilots. Because fuck knows where Uncle Scott was now.

Then again, that bastard was better off lost.

"We both know there's more to it than that," Herc replied.

"Do we?" Chuck retorted sharply, staring his father down. There was a pause, and Chuck stepped forward, pulling the icepack from his nose and shoving it at his father's chest. "You love him so much, you go be his co-pilot. See if I give a shit," Chuck hissed, heading for the door.

"You should get that looked at," Herc adds softly, just as Chuck was leaving.

"Whatever, old man," Chuck snapped, shutting the door behind him. There was a whine. He almost felt bad enough about leaving Max behind to go back and get him. Almost. But there were two things that stopped him. One was pride. The other was that despite all the things he shot his father's way, he was right. His nose was _aching_ , and if he wanted to be fight ready he needed to go get it taped or something. And since being benched didn't agree with him, medical really did seem like the right place. Not that he thought they'd bench him over a broken nose, and no one seemed too fussed about his dust up in the hallway with Raleigh, so really, he was probably fine. But he had heard all these stories about noses needing reset and healing up crooked, and shit, he wasn't vain, but the Weis would never let him live it down if his nose was permanently squint because of Raleigh fucking Becket.

His life sucked more than people thought it did, or so it seemed.

Chuck would say it couldn't get much worse, but as he walked into medical, Raleigh Becket was walking out, and yeah, that sucked pretty bad too. Becket shot him a look and Chuck wasn't quite sure what it meant, but he was more worried about his potentially crooked nose than Becket's dumb puppy eyes right now, so he ignored him and walked into the medical bay. The nurse eyed him with resignation, as if she had been expecting him. They asked him to sit down, and he did so, because you don't argue with the medical staff. It took a minute, but he realised he wasn't alone. She must have been here for Becket. She was hovering, though. As if she couldn't quite decide what to do.

After a moment, she stayed. Chuck lowered his gaze, exhaling heavily as the nurse moved to retrieve the supplies she needed.

"Mako..." he started. He wasn't good at apologies. Never had been, likely never would be. That was probably pride too. Pride that Chuck didn't think he had, but really. He was a military brat, he was born to be a soldier, and it was all he'd been since age ten. A child of war. Admitting weaknesses wasn't his strong point. Another reason why he admired Mako Mori so damn much - they were born in the same age, the same time, when monsters came from the sea and nightmares came true, an age where they need to fight for their very right to survive. They were never allowed to be children, not really. And yet for how fucked up he was, Mako was perfectly well adjusted. Strong, poised, clever, but not nearly as shut off as he was. She was a brilliant engineer, a great diplomat, and people _liked_ her. Maybe she could be a little quiet at first, but he knew she'd been working with Gipsy's crew for a long time now. They knew her well. Mako was perfect.

Maybe he'd been a little bit in love with her for a while. But not in love love. Not since he was a kid. She was his sister, and he was proud of her. He was proud of what she had achieved, and she'd always wanted to be a Ranger. He wanted that shot for her. But not with Becket. He was supposed to help her, look after her, and instead they nearly blew up the hangar because Becket was incapable of doing his job. It wasn't her fault, what happened. First Drifts were always rough. Everyone knew that. It was Becket and his fucked up psyche.

Whatever he said in the hallway well that just... slipped out. He was angry. It happened, sometimes. The way she looked at him told him that she was long used to it by now. She approached slowly and Chuck sighed, yelping in pain slightly when the nurse swooped back in, prodding at his nose. Definitely broken then.

"Don't worry, Ranger Hansen. We'll have you patched up in no time," she assured him. Chuck grumbled slightly, and he caught Mako's light smile out of the corner of his eye.

"What, you like seeing me in pain?" he accused gently. There was no venom in his words. Mako held her smile, shaking her head softly.

"Not necessarily. It is unusual though," she clarified.

"Yeah, well, Becket's got a strong right hook," Chuck grumbled, glancing away. After a moment he looked back to her, guilt showing on his face. There was an old phrase about dogs and their owners. Mako privately thought that there were more similarities between Max and Chuck than the latter would ever be willing to admit. She'd never mention it for that very reason.

"Are you okay?" she asked cautiously. Chuck shrugged, glancing to the nurse, who looked over her shoulder at Mako. Chuck was sure there was meant to be doctor-patient confidentiality here, but everyone loved Mako and it wasn't like he had his pants down or anything. It was just like the nurses office at school - or at least, from what he'd heard from other guys around base, since he'd never really been to a real high school. An audience of sick kids to your pain. Mako wasn't ill, but it was better that way.

"Minor damage only, Miss Mori. Ranger Hansen will be fine, as long as he stays out of any more corridor boxing matches."

"You heard about that, huh?" Chuck asked. She nodded, a very faint smile on her lips.

"News travels fast in the Shatterdome. That and Ranger Becket's already been here."

"Yeah, I noticed," Chuck grumbled. He bit his lip for a moment. "Is _he_ okay?"

"Chuck, I didn't know you cared," Mako teased softly. Chuck rolled his eyes.

"I don't, but someone's gotta make Gipsy work and you lot are all hooked on it being him, so..."

"And you're going to accept that?"

"No. He messed up. Don't tell me he didn't. Maybe I was a little harsh, but he's still a coward who-" Mako cut him off.

"He's a man who lost his brother and never came to terms with it. He did a lot of good in the past, Chuck. You of all people should know that." And that would be the disadvantage of growing up with a girl with a memory.

"So you think he's the right man for the job, then? No doubts after that Drift?" She hesitated. Chuck raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like her. "Mako?"

"I am confident that he is the best pilot we have available," Mako stated carefully, slowly, like she was trying to keep the holes from appearing in her words. But Chuck had known her for years. Maybe they hadn't been on the best terms as of late, but that was more from distance than anything else. He'd been busy defending Sydney, she'd been rebuilding Gipsy in Hong Kong, and by the time they reunited, Becket was already in the picture to screw everything up. It had been too long since they last talked. But not long enough for him to forget who she was. So he pressed.

"Yeah, but?" She bit her lip. That was when he knew something was wrong. "Mako, c'mon."

She glanced towards the nurse. The poor woman seemed to take the hint, very subtly mentioning something about needing more supplies from the store. She disappeared out the door, and then Mako turned back to him, speaking softly, just like the times they used to gossip about Jaegers when they were young. When Herc was out piloting and Stacker was in LOCCENT.

"I'm not sure, and it's not my place to say but... it was so fast. There was too much going on."

"Mako, what is it? I promise I won't say anything."

"Something felt... off."

"What is it?" Chuck asked with a frown.

"I don't know. And that's the only reason I'm telling you. I don't know." She paused momentarily. "The Marshall ordered a full DNA workup for him. That's why he was here. They were taking samples as well."

"You think something's going on, don't you?" Mako nodded reluctantly.

"I do. And I don't know what to do. I didn't even know who to tell. I trust him, Chuck. But I am worried for him."

"Look, you don't have to pilot-"

"It doesn't matter anyway. The Marshall grounded me."

"He _what_?" Chuck objected loudly. "That's bullshit, that wasn't your fault in there!"

"Chuck..." she admonished lightly. Chuck shook his head.

"No. You've wanted this for too long. It's not right."

"It's for the best," she said levelly, and it was the kind of tone that lead him to believe this was what she'd been telling herself for the past hour at least. He opened his mouth to object, but before he could get a word out, the Kaiju alarm shrieked through the Shatterdome, the lights flashing red. Chuck cursed under his breath, grabbing his jacket and jumping off of the exam table.

"Shit, didn't think we were due..." he muttered to himself, before glancing back to Mako. "This isn't over, Mori," he warned her. She smiled softly.

"You should give Raleigh a chance. I do not believe half the things you blame him for are his fault." Chuck sighed, hesitating for a moment.

"Okay, fine. Maybe I'll give him a chance. Later. Right now, I got Kaiju to kill." The nurse appeared at the doorway, and Chuck hesitated. He's had medical staff fussing over him before. She seemed to realise that.

"Superficial wounds only, Ranger Hansen. Good luck out there."

He nodded and headed out the door, knowing he needed to suit up now. With Gipsy grounded, there were only three of them left. Right now, he had a city to save.

 

 

 

As far as city saving went, it was nothing short of a disaster. Well. Near disaster. Cherno and Crimson were down far too quickly, and then there was a bloody EMP pulse. And then his father had decided shooting flare guns at a Kaiju was a _good_ idea. In a Jaeger, Chuck was very rarely afraid to die, although there might have been one or two moments. On top of one? Standing helplessly on a two hundred and sixty foot metal coffin, facing down a giant? That was fucking terrifying. And yet flare guns were still supposed to be a good idea. He was fairly sure they were going to die, actually, until Gipsy Danger descended from the heavens like an avenging angel.

Maybe he cheered a little. Maybe it was just like when he was fourteen. He'd sooner choke on his own tongue before admitting it, though.

The aftermath of the battle was pretty horrendous, though. Striker was in one piece, but Cherno and Crimson definitely weren't. Crimson Typhoon was missing a connpod, since it had been ripped off the top of the Jaeger and tossed into the bay. A little more pressure and the thing would have been crushed like a can. Instead, the Weis were laid up in hospital with broken bones, concussion and electrical burns, counting their lucky stars. Chuck had dropped by when he heard they were in one piece. Really, as far as almost dying went, they didn't seem too bad. Someone had given them a mini basketball, the little soft ones you gave to kids. It was driving the nurses insane.

Luckier still, though, were Sasha and Aleksis. Cherno had been drowned in the bay, and when the water leaked in and shorted out the systems, they'd all assumed the Russian guard had finally fallen. Until they crawled out of the harbour and walked right back to base like it happened every day. They'd ended up in medical too, being treated for hypothermia and oxygen deprivation, among other things. Kaiju infested bay, polluted water and somehow they made it out alive. Cherno's connpod had been intact. It was all that had saved them, really. If that wasn't a miracle, Chuck didn't know what was.

They’d been so close to losing everything, and whilst Cherno was missing too many parts to function again anytime soon, whilst Crimson was in too many pieces to glue back together, at least they hadn't lost any pilots. Losing Jaegers was hard enough. Losing their pilots wasn't something any of them wanted to consider. But they were all fine, although after less than an hour, the nurses were already complaining about having the five of them in one room. The Weis and the Kaidonovskys had a bad habit of pranking each other anyway, and in such confined space…

Well, maybe Chuck couldn’t help but crack a smile when he walked away from medical.

But then of course, there was the real issue of the day. The heroes themselves. Mako Mori and Raleigh fucking Becket.

He might not have been Raleigh's biggest fan, but the bastard had proved himself out there. Clearly, whatever doubts Mako had weren't an issue in their Drift. Chuck had seen some of the battle. And shit... even he'd never taken a Kaiju like that. It was impressive. If he'd been six years younger, he probably would have been dreaming about it for a long time to come. As it was... well, he'd promised Mako he'd try. And he wasn't a dumbass. He owed them both his life. Chuck realised he was lucky to come away unscathed. Even his father was lucky, at just getting an arm strapped up. Broken, of course. He'd tried to warn him but…

When he left medical, it was pure chance that meant he spotted Raleigh down the hallway. Or maybe the universe was pushing them together. Chuck sighed, because as much as he didn't want to, he might as well get it over with, pride be damned.

“Hey, Becket,” he called down the empty space, catching up as far as he could. “You got a minute?” Raleigh looked cautious. Which, he thought, was fair enough, considering last time they were face to face Chuck hadn’t exactly been pulling any punches. The fact he had lost that fight still stung. He should have won, but he knew he didn’t. Becket probably could have put him in hospital for a month if he wanted. The fact that Raleigh had been up some dumbass wall for five years and was still capable of that… yeah, it hurt.

Part of him felt sort of proud about it though. And not in some stupid fanboy ‘I got punched by Raleigh Becket and it was the best day of my life’ way. He’d chosen the Beckets, chosen Gipsy years ago, a dark secret he would take to his grave. It felt nice to be justified in that choice. No one wanted their idols to let them down. And despite the fact the Beckets already had let him down with Knifehead… well, at least Raleigh wasn't a complete washout. It wasn't much, but it was something.

“I’m not looking to start anything,” Chuck added as he drew closer, Raleigh having deigned him with a pause at the very least. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but he wasn’t looking to grovel and beg for forgiveness either. He’d had his doubts. Becket hadn’t exactly left on a high note, and the fact that he left at all was still a black mark to him. He was right to be cautious. Seemed like he was the only one in the entire ‘Dome that had thought being cautious was a good thing. Not that he was questioning the Marshall's judgement but shit, really?

“Yeah? Because you didn’t seem like you were into pacifism the last time.”

“You hadn’t killed two Kaiju last time,” Chuck countered. Raleigh looked away for a moment, shaking his head.

“Do you just measure everyone by how many Kaiju they’ve killed?” he asked. Chuck clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to lash out. Jesus, and people blamed him for starting fights.

“Hey, last time you were in a Jaeger before now, you sort of fucked it up, Becket. Then you come back and you’re supposed to be our grand saviour, supposed to be guarding my ass? I’m supposed to be grateful that they sent someone I didn’t know if I could even trust to watch my back? The Kaidonovskys and the Weis, yeah, I trust them. But you weren’t any better than a rookie to me, Becket. Worse, even. So don’t act offended that I wasn’t part of the welcoming committee, yeah?”

Raleigh paused. Apparently, he hadn’t thought of it like that. Of course not. Because Chuck Hansen was just the kid with the temper tantrum to everyone in the vicinity. God forbid he have some actual maturity after five years of piloting a Jaeger.

“You really don’t know how to break it to a guy gently, do you?” Raleigh questioned, a soft smile curving the edges of his lips. Chuck shrugged, unapologetic.

“I’m not trying to be nice, Becket. Just trying to get the job done.”

“I’d hate to see you when you’re really out for blood, then.” Chuck snorted dryly.

“You’ll know it when you see it.” He paused, looking around a little. “So am I allowed to give you a compliment, or are you gonna start making more assumptions about me? Because that was some good work out there.”

Raleigh actually cracked a smile. Not a full one, not the broad grins of the good old days. But it was there. And it was enough.

“Yeah, thanks. It was mostly Mako though.”

“She’s good. You better look after her, Ray,” Chuck warned him.

“Raleigh. And yeah, I know.”

“Just making sure, _Ra_ leigh,” Chuck retorted, his accent sticking over the vowels, just like before. Raleigh seemed to grimace a little. Chuck internally celebrated the fact, for some reason. What sort of a dumb name was Raleigh anyway? The American seemed to admit defeat, shaking his head slightly.

“So, you been to the mess yet?” Raleigh asked. Chuck shook his head.

“Nah, too busy checking up on everyone.”

“You wanna…?” Raleigh asked, trailing off. Chuck rolled his eyes.

“You’ve been sitting at my bloody table half the time anyway, you drongo.” Raleigh paused.

“So is that a yes, or…?”

“Move your arse, Becket. Bloody Yanks.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Skippy,” Raleigh quipped in reply.

“Oi! Careful what kangaroo references you make, yeah?”

They weren’t exactly friends. But it was a start. And it was as close to an apology as they were ever going to get. After all, emotional constipation ran in the family.

 

 

 

There was peace for perhaps a day or so. Gottleib and Geiszler hadn't given them long until the big moment, until the triple event forced them to play their hand. But the crews needed the time to repair Gipsy and Striker, needed to try and figure out if Cherno and Crimson were salvageable. Neither of the felled Jaegers were in good shape. A recovery team had found Cherno in the bay with a massive hole through her armour. The drive core was unsalvageable - frankly, she was a wreck. She had stored in one of the derelict hangars, until they could move her to Oblivion Bay. If they ever got to move her to Oblivion Bay. Crimson was looking more hopeful, mostly because the body was largely intact, but the fact the connpod had been ripped off and hurled half way across the bay didn’t help much. Even if it could be repaired, the Weis weren’t in any state to be piloting.

Neither was Herc.

It was a fact Chuck had been doing his best to ignore for a while, because it meant that the future of Striker was uncertain. Gipsy was the hero of the hour, everyone still basking in Mako and Raleigh’s success. The two of them had been practically glued at the hip since the fight, and honestly, it was getting a little weird. They were so in sync, even out of the Drift… maybe they were better matched than Chuck had bargained for. But other than the two of them, he was the only fit pilot left with a Jaeger. It left him with two options. Find a new co-pilot, or get benched so someone else could take Striker out. Neither sat well with him. It was supposed to be him and Herc, but getting benched…. this was his mission, his job. He’d been working for this for years. No one was going to take it away from him now.

He was relatively sure his father wanted to ‘talk’. Chuck had been avoiding him. Right now, he was hiding out down near K Science, down one of the empty hallways at that part of the Shatterdome. That was the thing about a Dome running on a skeleton crew. Lots of empty space to hide in. No one would think of looking for him with the science boys. Not for a while, anyway. He’d brought Max with him, and was tossing a ball down the hall for him, sitting with his back against the end of the hall.

He would have stayed there too, if Max hadn’t gotten distracted after one of his throws, heading down the corridor back towards the lab. And Christ, Chuck didn’t really want his dog chowing down on Kaiju nasties or anything dumb like that. Cursing softly, Chuck hauled himself to his feet, collecting the abandoned ball himself before heading around the corridor to chase after his deserter of a dog.

Who was currently getting a really good back massage from Raleigh, or so it seemed.

“You trying to kidnap my dog, Becket?” Chuck asked, pocketing the thoroughly chewed ball, raising an eyebrow. Raleigh looked up, almost guilty.

“Nah, Newt wanted to see me about some stuff,” Raleigh shrugged, standing up. “Think they got the results of my DNA back or something.”

“Yeah, Mako mentioned that.” Chuck also remembered how she had voiced her concerns, but Raleigh had seemed more put together since Otachi and Leatherback, and Mako also hadn’t mentioned it again. He didn’t know if that meant everything was fixed or if they just weren’t talking about it, but they seemed to get results, even if there were issues. “You know what they want it for?”

Raleigh shook his head, glancing towards the door. “Not really. Just got told they wanted it when I went in after…” He tailed off. Yeah. Chuck knew when they’d taken the samples. “Guess they got it down here since this was where all the DNA sequencing stuff ended up.”

“Guess so,” Chuck agreed, glancing around a little awkwardly. Max was looking kind of pleased with himself again. Little shit.

“You wanna come? It’s probably just a bunch of numbers I won’t understand.” Chuck was a little surprised, not exactly sure what Raleigh expected of him. He guessed it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t curious. Just as long as Max didn’t step in any Kaiju goop. Hell, as long as _he_ didn’t step in any Kaiju goop.

“You need help telling the ones from the sevens, Becket?” Chuck quipped, and Raleigh rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, sure.”

Chuck shook his head a little, heading for the door. “C’mon then. Geiszler’s probably already trying to clone you.” He headed inside, not waiting to see if Raleigh was following, but paused very abruptly when he saw who was already there. Max barked, heading over to the small group of people gathered by a computer - thankfully on the cleaner side of the lab. At least, the side less infected with Kaiju puke or whatever it was Geiszler studied all day.

“Chuck?”

“Thought you were working on Striker, old man,” Chuck replied quickly, his eyes skimming the scene. Gottleib, Geiszler, plus Stacker and his father. Jesus, what was going on?

“I was,” Herc replied briefly, before all eyes skidded straight to Raleigh, who was hovering at Chuck’s left. Chuck looked over, and Raleigh looked a little concerned. Probably every right to be, given the situation.

“Uh, someone told me you had results for me?” Raleigh asked, sounding as confused as he looked. There was a pause. Clearly, no one knew what to tell him. That was interesting all by itself. Where there was the possibility the quartet had been meeting about Pitfall, that seemed less likely with the looks they were getting. Chuck knew the two crazy scientists had drifted with some Kaiju baby to get them information, but he wasn’t thinking about that too hard. It was going to change the plan, but since no one had talked to him about the plan yet, Chuck didn’t class it as his place to ask. He’d know when he needed to. If he needed to.

“Have a seat, Ranger Becket,” Stacker suggested, pulling a chair over. Chuck hesitated slightly.

“You know, I was just heading upstairs…” He didn’t really want to linger in his father’s presence right now, but Raleigh shot him a look that said he was wondering what he did to deserve being thrown to the dogs. There's surprise there too, though, a fact Chuck filed away for future reference.

“You can stay, Ranger Hansen.” Stacker’s word was as good as law, so Chuck halted, clenching his jaw slightly. Why the hell did he need to be here? He could feel his father’s eyes boring holes into him but this… clearly it’s something more than they’ve been expecting. He’s curious, sure, but not this curious. Not curious enough to violate Raleigh’s medical privacy or whatever. Not that Raleigh seemed to mind, but he could never quite decide how Raleigh would take things. He’d taken all the crap Chuck had given him about leaving without question, but the second he brought Mako into it?

Maybe Mako just inspired scary kinds of loyalty way too easily. He was willing to believe that.

“So… what did you find?” Raleigh asked cautiously. Newt almost tripped over himself getting to his feet. Chuck had to resist the urge to snort.

“There might have been a teeny tiny issue with the test, so y’know, I just wanna check a few things, if you don’t mind?” Newt explained, coming at Raleigh with another cotton swab. Raleigh looked puzzled. Chuck wasn't surprised - he couldn’t work out what the hell was going on either.

“Uh, sure?” Raleigh agreed, and Chuck could only watch from the sidelines as the good Doctors fussed around with some more equipment at the computer, bickering away as they were so well known for around the Shatterdome. They clearly didn’t notice the heavy tension in the air that Chuck did. Or maybe they were just ignoring it. Raleigh was trying to, but Stacker was rigid, and Herc… well, Herc was looking at him. Chuck looked away, examining some of the Kaiju goop until the computer beeped obnoxiously after a minute or so.

The pause was enough to make him look over. They were all staring at the computer. Something was definitely off. And for all his following orders, Chuck didn’t have the patience for this. They’d wanted him to stay, so he stayed. But Max was still hovering around, and Chuck wanted his dog out of here soon, thank you very much. So he moved over, leaning in to get a look at the screen.

“What are you all frowning at?” he asked, examining the screen. Two samples were lined up together. If Chuck had some sort of biology doctorate, he might understand what he was looking at. As it was, his area of expertise was a bunch of nearly extinct giant robots. So he didn’t have a clue. Raleigh hadn’t moved. Not like he’d be able to see the damn screen anyway, the number of people shoved around it. “Someone gonna explain what we’re all staring at here?”

Hermann was the only one that seemed to have it together enough to even begin to explain. Newt looked like he might wet himself, which was pretty disturbing.

“The sample on the left is Ranger Becket’s DNA, whereas the sample on the right is… a Kaiju sample.”

“Kaiju? What the hell are we looking at Kaiju for?” Chuck demanded, looking between the scientists. Raleigh looked pale.

“There are certain genetic markers, specific sequences… jargon code in normal DNA…” Gottleib began, but Newt cut over him.

“This part here, see?” Newt said, pointing at the screen. “We have hundreds of DNA samples on record, from humans and monkeys and tigers and whales and all your typical earth beings, but this sequence is uniquely Kaiju. I mean, it’s pretty fascinating, the way they put it all together, and if their masters built it from their own DNA sequence, then you’ve got a world of possibility since-”

“Doctor Geiszler,” Stacker cut across Newt’s rambling. “I would like an answer today.”

Newt exhaled deeply, his eyes flicking to Raleigh, still sat in the chair. He definitely looked paler now. Chuck’s brain was beginning to piece it all together, but it wasn’t something he’d ever considered…. hell, who would have thought about it, other than wacko Kaiju groupies?

“The equipment’s fine. That’s definitely Raleigh’s DNA.”

No one seemed to want to say it. Chuck didn’t have the decency to worry about it.

“Are you saying that Raleigh’s a _Kaiju_? What, did you get high on Kaiju vomit or something?” Chuck asked, backing away a little. Herc shot him a glare.

“Chuck...”

“No! Are you listening to yourselves? The Kaiju are out _there_. We built _robots_ to fight them, there’s no way in hell they’d… no. I mean c’mon. Does Raleigh look like a Kaiju to you?”

“If the Doctors say that the DNA fits, then I trust their judgement,” Stacker pressed. Chuck shook his head all the same.

“This is crazy,” he muttered, before glancing at Raleigh. He was still sitting in the damn chair like a deer caught in headlights. “What, you’re not even going to defend yourself, Becket?”

“They’re right.” The words were cracked, hollow, and they almost spoke of something breaking inside Raleigh. Chuck blinked, staring at him.

“ _What?_ ” he hissed.

“They’re right, it’s… yeah. I guess-”

Chuck didn’t wait to hear any more, instead launching himself across the space, his hands burying themselves Raleigh’s shirt. He was vaguely aware of protests in the background, of Max barking, but it didn’t matter. Raleigh was a Kaiju. The Kaiju were human - or at least, they _looked_ human - and Raleigh was one of them. That fucking race of monsters that had wiped out half the planet, that had _destroyed_ his life, and Raleigh had the audacity to sit there in front of them, to be _here_. Had he been laughing at them the whole time, their feeble efforts to fight back? Was that where he’d been for the last five years? Sitting at his master’s feet, whispering all of their secrets? Was _that_ why they were losing, why everything Chuck had _bled_ for was slipping away down the drain, why they were down to one last shot before the Earth just curled up and died?

It was all Raleigh’s fault. He should kill him. He should choke the life right out of him. It wasn't as if he was human.

And yet all Chuck could see was Raleigh’s vaguely broken expression, those crystal blue eyes, and the memory of that smile on his face. More to the fact, the bastard wasn’t even fighting back. Not as Chuck hauled him to his feet and shoved him against one of the tables, their bodies pressing close as the fury spilled out of Chuck’s every heartbeat. He should kill him. The PPDC had taught him how. It wouldn’t even be hard. The right amount of pressure… or maybe he was resistant to that. Maybe evil like that couldn’t be killed.

But Raleigh Becket wasn’t evil. Mako would have noticed. She would have known. She'd drifted with him, and she had good judgement. She wasn't stupid. She would have noticed, would have said something. That and he owed Raleigh fucking Becket his life.

“This is for Gipsy, you bastard,” Chuck hissed in his face, fingers curling tighter for a moment.

Then he let him go.

Whistling for Max, he was gone before he could change his mind. He still wasn’t sure if he’d made the right choice. Hell, part of him was half convinced it was all a dream and he’d wake up tomorrow.

But that was the thing about Chuck. Whatever his nightmares were, they all seemed to come true.

 

 

 

Chuck went from avoiding his father to avoiding everyone.

It wasn’t hard, really, to wrap up in his own bubble and get away. He’d grown up in Shatterdomes - he knew where to go, where no one would look. The very top of one of the empty bays was his new home, and he had Max with him, so it wasn’t so bad. The cold steel pressed against his back as he looked across the vast hangar, and Max lay on the ground nearby, stretched across the floor. Even the bulldog seemed a little sad. Big, sorrowful eyes gazed up at Chuck, and every once in a while, he felt bad about it.

Then reality came rushing back in, and he had to close his eyes and exhale.

He’d done a little research before coming up here, because shit, just accepting the sort of earth shattering news he’d been given seemed a little drastic. He hadn’t been able to find much in the bracket of ‘crazy things people have done since the Kaiju attacks started’ when looking for evidence of some sort of Kaiju conspiracy, because really, a lot of people had done a lot of crazy things. A lot of people had given up on the world a long time ago. But Chuck hadn’t. This was supposed to be the last attempt, the final mission. They were going to end this, one way or another. This was going to end it all. This was going to make sure there wasn’t some other ten year old kid that had to lose his parents to all this. It was going to keep families whole, let people start living their lives again. Maybe it would be a suicide run but fine. He’d gladly give his life to end all of this.

It was what he’d been made for, after all.

He was at peace with that. He’d come to terms with it. And yeah, maybe he hadn’t initially been happy about having Becket to guard his wing, but four was better than three, and Ra- that _thing_ had proved himself. Okay, maybe they were down to two Jaegers now, but it hadn’t been impossible.

But Becket wasn’t even human. He was a Kaiju. He’d flat out admitted it, and that was that. A Kaiju had been helping them kill other Kaiju. A Kaiju that looked _human_ , more to the fact. That was the thing that sickened him most of all. How many of them were there? Just Raleigh? More? Dozens? Thousands? Maybe they’d already lost the planet already. Maybe, even if they did seal the breach, they’d still lose. The Kaiju already here would just reopen it from this side and…

Chuck wanted to be sick. His head hurt, and most of all, he felt betrayed. Which was ridiculous, because him and Becket weren’t _friends_. They had never been friends. Maybe Chuck had learned to respect him a little more, but that was different. Acceptance was not friendship, and in some ways, he’d been proved right. He’d insisted that Raleigh wasn’t right for this, and he had been right. Becket wasn’t right for this mission at all, and it wasn’t PTSD that was stopping him. Chuck had to wonder if it had been an act all along. The grieving, the hiding on the Alaskan Wall... Maybe he’d murdered Yancy. Maybe Yancy had just been the poor human sap whose brother got replaced with some alien clone one night. Or maybe they were both…

No. He couldn’t think about that. Gipsy had been his hero, his childhood, had meant so much to him. Raleigh and Yancy included. They’d been symbols of the time. To think they’re both been traitors… it was a betrayal of everything they’d fought for. Of course they’d lost this war, if that was what had been going on. They’d only ever fought on the shorelines, the sea front. No one had bothered to look at the internals, because how would aliens the size of buildings be within their very core?

Maybe they’d all been a little naive about things.

He should have killed Becket when he had the chance. His father would never do it, and Stacker would be all about fair trials and hearing evidence. He was a Kaiju, he’d admitted it. What more did they need? But no, Raleigh Becket was his father’s pride and joy for whatever fucked up reason, and Stacker was too much of the righteous man. Gottleib didn’t have the spine and Geiszler… Jesus, Geiszler was probably drooling all over Raleigh, Kaiju nuthead as he was. He’d probably get Raleigh’s face tattooed across his ass or something.

Not an image he needed in his head.

And so the whirlpool of Chuck’s mind continued to spiral on, every little possibility of Raleigh’s true genetics caught up in the current. The silence didn’t stop him thinking, and Max was small comfort in a tornado like this. But he was better alone, than having to deal with everyone down there. A hundred people who wouldn’t know. More who wouldn’t care. And worse, those who would tell him to accept it. How could he? The Kaiju had ripped everything from him. He was the best Jaeger pilot they’d ever had, sure. But that was only because they needed someone to stop the Kaiju, someone to fight back, and Chuck had never done second best. He’d been robbed of his mother, and then he’d lost his father to the war effort. Even now, now that he was truly on the inside of the PPDC, now he had what he wanted, the rift between what he had and what could have been was still massive. He had lost everything to those bastards. His childhood, his whole future. And Raleigh was one of them. It wasn’t the sort of thing that was easily accepted and tossed aside. Not for him. He needed time to process, at the very least. They could give him that much.

Or at least, he thought they could.

Footsteps echoed on the metal walkway, and Chuck didn’t move, his eyes fixed on the expanse of the Shatterdome below, the perfect curves of Gipsy Danger. There was no escaping that Jaeger, even up here. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to see. It was too much right now. He reached out, curling his hands in Max’s fur, scratching his dog behind his ears. His visitor leaned against the railings, looking out into the space below, where the hive of activity somehow seemed like an anthill.

“They’re worried, you know.” Mako’s lilting tones curled through the air, and Chuck bit his lip to restrain a sigh, studying Max’s fur. Of course it would be her. Who else would it be, but the girl he’d grown up with, the girl who knew everything about him? Not even a girl anymore. So much more than that. They weren’t children any more. He wasn’t sure if they ever truly had been.

“Yeah, well they can shove it up their-”

“Chuck,” she admonished lightly before he could finish, turning back. She sighed heavily before sitting down beside him, her hands joining his, curling gently through Max’s short fur. He turned his head at the attention, his tongue lolling out as he panted excitedly. Damn dog always did love attention.

“Did you know?” he asked, his voice cracking a little at the question as he looked up to study her face. Mako frowned, and whatever her answer was going to be, he knew it wasn’t going to be what he wanted right now. “Did you know about him?” he pressed, stronger than before. Mako exhaled, her eyes dropping.

“No.”

“But you knew something.”

“His childhood. The memories… they felt… distant. It was different, to everything else,” she admitted slowly.

“That’s all?” Chuck insisted.

“That’s all,” she confirmed lightly. “He did not know. Not before.” Chuck paused for a moment, focusing his attention on Max. He was glad he’d brought the dog with him. At least Max had never let him down.

“You spoke to him?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” she murmured softly.

“And you still trust him?”

“I do,” she confirmed. Chuck looked up, frowning.

“How? Why? The Kaiju-”

“He is not like them,” Mako insisted, cutting off his questions. Chuck didn’t understand. Mako had lost just as much because of the Kaiju. More, even. Her whole family, her home, her life. She’d lost everything because of them. How could she be alright with any of this? But she didn’t look terribly torn up. She looked… fine. “The Doctors… the Kaiju we know are like animals. They take orders. They do not think for themselves, they do not feel anything. They are tools. Devices. Perhaps Raleigh was intended as that too, but something went wrong somewhere. Raleigh is more than just a tool. He knows what he’s doing, who he is. And he’s choosing to stay.”

“And we just have to be okay with that? He’s one of them,” Chuck retorted. Mako sighed, glancing away.

"History has been full of mistakes caused by prejudice. We would be wise not to repeat those mistakes.” She paused, looking out across the hangar, towards Gipsy. “Raleigh might be a Kaiju, but he fought for us. He lost Yancy for us, because whatever you think, the pain he feels over that is real. He has given plenty to fight the Kaiju. And he is willing to do it again, despite everything. That should be what matters.”

“How are we supposed to trust him, though? What if there’s some… code in his brain that’s just going to make him kill us all?” Chuck asked. Mako smiled softly, lifting one hand from Max, and resting it on Chuck’s shoulder. Max huffed at the loss of contact, shifting to stretch himself across Mako a little more, a bridge between them as his head moved to lay across Chuck’s knee, his back legs curled into Mako’s thigh.

“Do you trust me?” Chuck shot her a look. “Answer the question.”

“Of course,” Chuck replied. How could he not? They’d had their differences, and maybe they hadn’t been close for a few years, but he’d grown up with Mako. He knew her, inside and out. They’d been best friends, once. They’d tried more but… it never would have worked out. They were too far apart. Two separate worlds. It was never meant to be.

“Then trust me. Because I trust him.”

He sighed, before shrugging slightly. “I’ll think about it.” It was as good as a yes and she knew it. She smiled slightly, shifting her attentions back to the bulldog spread between them.

“He wants to see you. So does Herc.”

“Yeah, I’ll get to it. I just… needed some time. That’s all.”

Mako nodded solemnly. “I think we all do.”

Time was what they needed. And yet, as the War Clock reminded them in the distance, time was the last thing they had. And they were still short of a pilot. And if the Kaiju came in thirty minutes, if this was the last half hour he had… he didn’t think he could spend it sulking up here.

Spending time with an old friend though. Yeah. He could do that.

“When did you get so old and wise, Mori?” Chuck grumbled. She laughed, her voice like bells through the air.

“The same time you forgot to grow up and stayed stubborn and insolent, I suppose.”

“Oi, watch it Mori,” he replied. She smiled, nudging him slightly under the weight of bulldog.

“It is not a bad thing, Chuck. We need people who are not afraid to speak out.”

“Yeah, well, that much I can do.”

For how much longer, though, depended on a lot of things.

 

 

 

It’s funny that no matter how many times you tell yourself you’re going to do one thing, you still end up doing the other. Or so Chuck thought, as he considered exactly what he was going to do. Mako had left him alone on the walkway eventually, but Chuck had talked himself down not long after, convinced he would give them all a chance. His father, Raleigh… it wasn’t like they had much time left. A couple of days at most. He might as well give them a chance. How hard could it be? Besides, Mako always knew his weak spots. She knew how to make him think things through and well, fine, he was thinking. That was what she’d wanted, right?

Only went Chuck got downstairs and stood in the mess hall doorway, his eyes zeroed in on Herc and Raleigh seated at their usual table, looking like nothing was wrong at all, other than the way Herc’s arm was strapped up.

So yeah, he ran. So he’s a fucking coward now too, so what? It seemed to be a pattern lately. That was, if Kaiju sleeper agents could still be considered cowards. Who knew?

Chuck wasn’t really sure where he was trying to go, as long as it was far away from Becket. He wasn’t even sure he understood what he was doing in the mess. A guy admits to being a Kaiju and he still gets free reign of the Shatterdome? Are they really that desperate? That said, they’ve only got two Jaegers left, a matter of days until it’s all going to be over, one way or another, and they’re still a pilot short as it was, since no one’s mentioned anything about what he’s supposed to do now. And he guesses he gets it. Because if Becket’s offering, they couldn’t say no. The Weis and the Kaidonovskys are still hospital bound, and definitely not battle ready. Herc’s injured too, and they don’t have enough time to find another pilot, whether it’s a rookie or one of the few survivors of old. They couldn’t exactly turn away guys with Drift experience that still want to kill Kaiju, even if said guys are aliens themselves.

Christ, it still sounded fucking crazy thinking that.

But Mako said it was okay. That had to count for something, right? It was Mako. Mako had lost everything to the Kaiju, too. She wanted revenge just as much as he did. She wanted this to end, she was a part of this war as much as any of them. She wouldn’t just say it was fine unless she believed it. So either Becket was really good at hiding what the hell he was up to in that head of his or… Or maybe it was really okay. As okay as being a damn alien could be. Chuck was sure there was a whole world of humour waiting to be explored in there, but now didn’t really feel like the time.

Somehow, he ended up heading towards Striker, because in all his life, that robot had been the only constant he’d ever had.

The thing was that going for Striker wasn't exactly unpredictable. He barely made it to the hangar. The doors are in sight, standing open just ahead of him. But then there’s the problem, looming behind him. Of course.

“Chuck!”

He didn’t stop, but before he made it to his destination he felt a hand close over his arm, and Chuck wrenched away, spinning on his heel to face his pursuer. He shouldn’t be surprised, really. Mako had warned him. But somehow, he just wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how to handle any of this, didn’t know what to do. He’d never allowed for the possibility that the Kaiju were anything other than beasts of the sea, let alone that they could be like… this. That they could be willing to change sides, that they’d even have that desire in the first place. He’d thought he was ready to try and deal with it, but he wasn’t. That was why he’d left, dammit. Not so he could be stalked through the corridors.

“What do you want, Becket?” Chuck asked. He didn’t sound angry so much as… tired. Just tired. Raleigh seemed to soften slightly at that, his hand dropping away.

“I just… I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make up for much, but I’m sorry.” He even sounded sincere. Chuck hesitated slightly, glancing away briefly before his eyes flicked back to the man in front of him. It was still hard to believe it all. It didn’t exactly make sense. Then again, things had stopped making sense years ago.

“Did you know?” Chuck knew that Mako had said he hadn’t, but Chuck… well, he wanted to hear it from Raleigh. The man had proven himself as more than the incompetent coward Chuck had expected of him. That earned him a chance, at least. Maybe not much of one. But a chance all the same. Raleigh shook his head, running his fingers through his hair.

“No. I mean… I still feel the same. I just… know. I’m still me, but I also know that...well.” Raleigh didn’t seem comfortable saying it either, which Chuck took as a small comfort. “Newt said it’s probably some sort of self defence mechanism. Like some sort of… sleeper agent that gets new information on how to defend itself if it’s discovered or something.”

“And are you? Going to defend yourself?” Chuck asked, the challenge rising in his voice.

“Whatever they made me for… I’m still me. Nothing’s changed. We blow the Breach to hell and we end this.”

“Why?” Chuck demanded. It was all very poetic, rebelling against the creators, saving the planet… but the question had to be asked, even if no one else wanted to do it. “You’re one of them, why would you want to do this?”

“I’m not… biology doesn’t define us, Chuck. They wanted me to be human. They wanted me here. But whatever their plan was, it worked too well. Maybe I’m not human, but I’m with you. This is my home. I’m not letting them destroy it.”

He almost wanted to believe it. Maybe he would have, given the chance. Maybe things would have been different. But as it was, Chuck only saw Raleigh cutting him off as he tried to reply, tackling him to the ground out of nowhere, and a ringing sound in his ears.

It was a cliché, but really, it all happened so fast.

There was a lot of yelling over his head, and eventually Chuck managed to move past the dead weight of Raleigh on his chest, peering up to the crowd, where a cluster of techs and security seemed to have appeared from nowhere. There was someone in the middle of that. There was a gun on the floor.

He’d almost gotten shot, Chuck realised. He’d nearly been shot by some crazed Kaiju worshipping psycho in a tech’s uniform or something. And what then? Dying before Pitfall would have seemed like some sort of sick joke, but without a pilot…. they couldn’t run the operation on one Jaeger. And all that aside, he owed Raleigh his life. Again.

“Becket?” Chuck asked softly, nudging him aside, trying to get up. But Raleigh seemed unwilling to move, and Chuck frowned. “Hey, Becket, I’m fine.”

His breathing was ragged, hollow, Chuck realised, and there was an awful pallor to his skin. Forcefully turning him onto his back, it was only then Chuck realised the full issue. Their clothes were both stained red. But it wasn’t Chuck’s blood. It was Raleigh’s.

Funny. The first Kaiju to bleed red, and it was all because of him.

“Raleigh! Don’t you fucking dare,” Chuck threatened, his hands moving to the bullet wound in Raleigh’s side. He must have gotten caught whilst forcing Chuck out of the way. Raleigh could have done nothing, and then Chuck would have had a bullet in the back. But he hadn’t. Even as a Kaiju, it seemed Raleigh Becket was incapable of being anything other than a hero. And it burned, for more reasons than one. “Hey, we need a med team down here!” Chuck yelled to one of the nearby crowd, doing his best to stop the bleeding. But there was so much, and he didn’t think he’d seen this before… He’d lost friends, sure. But to the Kaiju, in Jaegers. So many were lost at sea. It was isolated, distant. This was more personal, closer, cut deeper.

He was literally watching the life slide out of Raleigh, and he couldn’t breathe because of it. Because despite the fact he’d thought the man was a coward, that he was worthless, that he wasn’t ready, he had been. He’d proved himself. And Chuck, well… he’d liked him. But not even Chuck Hansen could stop a rising tide.

“Raleigh, c’mon,” Chuck half begged, grabbing the other Ranger’s hand, pushing it to his stomach, his own hands moving to Raleigh’s face, despite the scarlet stains. The red was a sharp contrast to the last Becket’s skin, and Chuck knew it wasn’t a good sign. Not even a little bit. Raleigh managed to look over to him, the faintest of smiles on his face.

Raleigh coughed painfully, and Chuck could see the tension in his body. He shifted, his hands attempting to move reassuringly. All your personal issues were sort of irrelevant when someone was dying. And Chuck… he’d never wanted this. Not in a million years. Not like this. Not for Raleigh. Not even with everything. He'd just been angry when he wished him dead. As usual.

Why was it people only ever realised the truth when it was too late?

And then before Chuck had time to do more than breathe, the last Becket was gone.

Chuck sat there in the hall, doused in red, until his father came to get him, ignoring the blood splashed everywhere like some B rate horror movie to pull his son away. There had to be some irony in it all. Chuck, the great doubter, the non believer, the one who had questioned Raleigh’s motives more than anyone, challenged him the most. And it was Chuck that clung to the memory of a dead man he’d barely known the most. He didn’t care about Pitfall, didn’t care about the Kaiju, didn’t care about any of it.

All he cared about was that Raleigh was dead. And surprisingly enough, it felt like losing a friend.

 

 

 

The fact that Chuck allowed Herc to pick him up, lead him away to his room, and push him into the shower still fully clothed spoke volumes for his mental state. It was chaos down there. Everyone was sitting on edge, waiting for the next Kaiju attack, waiting for the operation, and now this…

The intruder, as it turned out, was a Kaiju cultist, who had somehow stolen a tech uniform and slipped in past security. Their numbers had dipped slightly since the UN had dumped them on their asses, so it was understandable on some level. Accidents happened. It was just unfortunate that it had been so devastating. At least, that was what they were saying. Unfortunate wasn’t a word Chuck would use to describe it. He’d probably need to punch someone else later. Once he’d pulled himself together. Once he’d taken the blood out of his skin. He was doused in scarlet, his hands and his shirt beyond saving. And most of all, his mind… his mind dripped red. Despite all the doubts he’d ever had about Raleigh, all of their differences… even him being a Kaiju… He hadn’t looked any less than human when he was bleeding out on the floor. Chuck's doubts had been professional, not personal. It had never been about Raleigh, not really. It had been about someone thinking he needed extra help to do this run, about someone thinking they were so bloody desperate that someone like Raleigh was required. Because as much as he wanted to hate Raleigh for running, to hate him for deserting his duty when they needed him most, he couldn’t. Mako… she talked too much sense sometimes.

God. Mako. She was probably devastated.

The water dripped over Chuck’s hair, down his back, and some part of him managed to remind himself to strip off his clothes. His shoes had come off somewhere along the way, but his sodden shirt was thrown to the bathroom floor in anger. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Why was he even so angry? They’d lost pilots before. They’d lost people. So many people…

Maybe it was because it wasn’t a hundred miles away, in an ocean far away. Maybe it was because he’d had to sit and watch a man die right in front of him, and know he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Or maybe it was because… they’d never been friends, Raleigh and him. But Chuck hadn’t ever really hated him either. Not truly. He’d idolised the man once. How could he ever truly hate him?

And the truth was, he hadn’t. He’d been angry and bitter, and he’d taken it out on Raleigh. And as much as Chuck knew he didn’t do apologies… he wished he could have apologised for that. Raleigh had been willing to do this mission, in spite of everything. Raleigh Becket had saved his life, more than once. Chuck owed him far too much, and he’d never paid any of it back. Still. Regrets weren’t going to do much. Regrets couldn’t bring anyone back to life. He had to focus on the mission. Hell, in theory, he could have to drop in the next ten minutes.

And they only had two active Jaeger pilots left.

Chuck stayed under the faucet until his skin started to wrinkle and pucker, the water drowning any emotions he had left in his body. It was the hardest thing in the world to drag himself out of there, wrap himself in a towel, and walk out of the bathroom. Somehow, he managed it, though. His father was still there, a pile of fresh clothes on the bed.

Of course. Herc had wanted to talk anyway. Why waste the opportunity to corner him?

Chuck didn’t want to talk, though. All he wanted to do was find the person responsible for putting a bullet through Raleigh Becket’s stomach and wring his or her neck until their face turned blue and their eyes fell out of their skull, like in the cartoons. He wanted to hurt someone. Right now, he wasn't in the mood to care who that was. If his father wanted to volunteer for that role, then well, so be it. Chuck wasn’t going to feel bad about it.

He didn’t think he had a single emotion left in his bones. It was like part of him had died with Becket.

But that was ridiculous.

Wordlessly, Chuck grabbed the pants, tugging them on. There was no modesty between Jaeger pilots, not after endless circuitry suit fittings, where the fabric clung to every contour like a glove. He didn’t think he cared what his father saw right now anyway. He didn’t care about anything. It was funny, how cold he felt inside. There was ice in his heart, and he could almost feel it spreading with every traitorous beat of his pulse. Raleigh had done it for him, Raleigh had died for him, Raleigh had stopped him taking a bullet in the back, he’d as good as shot him himself, he’d killed Raleigh Becket, it was all his fault and thank god there was a suicide mission coming because he didn’t know how to live with that.

“Chuck,” his father murmured quietly, reaching out with his good arm. Chuck shrugged him off, stepping away, putting the space back between them. Space that needed to stay there. He was toxic, clearly. He had no family left but his father, most of his friends were either dead Jaeger pilots or just plain old dead, and now he’d killed one of the few people that had dared to attempt to get close to him in years. If that was what you could call it. Raleigh had never left him alone, though. Stupid, stubborn bastard.

“Don’t.” Chuck threatened, grabbing the t-shirt and yanking it on roughly.

“It wasn’t your faul-”

“Of course it wasn’t my fault, it was his for being a fucking drongo and getting in the way,” Chuck snapped, cutting his father off. “And now what? We’ve got five pilots in the medbay, you’ve got a broken arm, and there’s no one else left. We don’t even have a complete team to send down to try and drop the bloody payload, so he didn’t just get himself killed, he got everyone else killed too. But I guess he was always good at that, right?”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Herc insisted. Chuck snorted.

“What, don’t like hearing the truth, old man? Maybe that was Becket’s plan all along, fuck us over in the end, fucking Kaiju. Probably meant to take me with him. Couldn’t even do that right.”

“He was on our side, Chuck, whatever you think of him.”

“Was he? All he did was a few flashy stunts out in the bay, and that earns him a medal, does it?”

“He defended Hong Kong when we couldn’t,” Herc insisted.

“Yeah, and who’s fault was that, then?” Chuck bit out. He could feel Herc stiffen. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. The EMP had knocked them out, and yeah, maybe they would have been able to boot it up again, but with Herc’s injuries, they wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere. And it was a bitter, painful, wounded fit of spite that made him say it. But he said it anyway.

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to do this.

“Let me know when you’ve got something constructive to say, yeah, _Dad_? I know you wish Becket was your son, but it’s fine. Not like we’re ever gonna have to drift again anyway.”

And then, despite Herc’s protests, Chuck was gone. He slammed the door as best as he could, and walked down the hall. He needed to get away. Needed to do something, anything. He wasn’t even thinking straight. His feet took him to the training facilities without thinking. His room wasn’t safe, that was for sure. But at least if he was near the Kwoon, he could hit someone and call it practice.

As it was, the Kwoon was empty. The gym equally so. But at least in the gym, he could make his muscles burn as much as he liked. It took what little control he had to tape his hands before he laid into the closest punching bag. And he didn’t stop. Not when his arms started to tremble and his breath started to come in gasps, not when his hands turned red and his body finally, finally just gave up.

Chuck Hansen hadn’t allowed himself a breakdown in over a decade. But as he slid to the floor, he knew this was as close as it was going to get. And it wasn’t just Raleigh. It was because he had lost _everything_. This had been their last shot. And they were without hope. Without a chance. The nerds were predicting a triple. One Jaeger couldn’t defend against that, even if he could drop with Mako. And they couldn’t carry out the plan either. They had nothing else to give. They were standing on the edge of a cliff, the ground crumbling away with no parachute and no rope.

The world was going to fall. The one thing he’d been able to do, he was going to fall short. It wouldn't be enough.

And yeah. It hurt.

Chuck closed his eyes, and stayed there in the gym until the alarms rang out through the Shatterdome.

At some point, he supposed he must have dozed off, because as he came back to his surroundings, there was a fog of confusion clouding what was going on. It wasn’t the Kaiju Alarm. But a place like this had plenty of other sirens and it sounded like… a security breach? And all he could think was not again. Not another one. The only other pilot still around was Mako and…

Please, God, let Mako be alright.

Pushing to his feet, Chuck raced down the hall, that one thought driving him forward. He’d lost enough today without losing his closest friend too. He couldn’t bear witness to that. He thought security would have pulled their shit together, that someone would have done something by now. How could it even happen twice? Wasn’t there some shitty saying about lightning striking twice? It wasn’t supposed to happen twice. Not so soon. Not now.

As Chuck approached the centre of the Dome, he found the majority of people heading for the Jaeger Bay which seemed… strange. But he followed anyway, pushing through the crowds and cutting across the empty space. Gipsy and Striker stood on either side of the bay, silent sentinels in the half light. One of the empty bays had been opened, the doors facing out into the bay, the ocean lapping at their doorstep. The sun was coming up. He didn’t realise it had been so long. He must have been in the gym longer than he’d thought… The pale yellow light of the new day stained the sky a milky yellow, the clouds hovering in the distance, smudged like chalk. The outline of the city was visible in the distance. It almost would have been beautiful, if Chuck hadn’t been more focused on other things. He didn’t understand why the doors would be open. There was no reason for it. The bay was empty… they weren’t expecting any Jaegers in, and the people… there was a small crowd gathering, and right at the edge of the doors, where water lapped at steel, Chuck spotted a flash of blue.

Jogging down towards her, he stopped beside her, looking around. LOCCENT was visible in the distance, and he thought he could see it was crowded too. There was a small security team at the doors of the bay. Despite being closer, he understood even less than before. Mako looked up at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, thought they darted to his taped hands. There was blood painted across his knuckles. He hadn’t even realised. And from the look on Mako’s face, he looked like hell.

“What’s going on?” he asked, ignoring her look. She nodded out of the doors, silent. Chuck didn’t see much apart from the dawn over the city, the yellow of the waves lapping at their doorstep. He was about to say something when he saw what she was talking about.

There was a fishing boat heading for the Shatterdome.

Hesitant, Chuck watched as the small craft drew closer before anchoring a little way off. The Shatterdome had a wide perimeter into the harbour, and most of the bay was a restricted zone. Uncharted boats would be a security issue, which explained the alarms. But what Chuck didn’t understand was the interest. Someone had thrown the doors open, and he wanted to know why. But when he tried to ask, Mako simply hushed him again. He knew better than to try a third time.

As the boat anchored, two figures emerged from the silhouette of the boat, diving into the water, swimming towards the Jaeger bay. That alone was crazy - the ocean had been polluted for years now, the Kaiju Blue corrupting the water to an awful, neon colour in some places. In others, it just made for some nasty skin-melting symptoms. And that was without mentioning the radiation leaks from the likes of Cherno. No one went in the ocean. No one apart from these idiots. The distance wasn’t far, and as they approached, Chuck thought he could make out their hair colour, although the light made it hard. Blonde…

It wasn’t until they reached the launch ramps that Chuck realised what the crowd was for. Because reborn from the ocean walked Raleigh and Yancy Becket, side by side, looking just as they had over five years ago in every single camera shot ever recorded of them. Their steps fell perfectly in sync, and although they wore plain black clothes instead of the Gipsy uniforms of the photoshoots, they were unmistakable.

It was like seeing a ghost. Chuck almost thought he was. He’d watched Raleigh die, Yancy had been lost at sea years ago… He had to look around to make sure he wasn’t the only one witnessing this. And even that wasn’t enough.

“Is that…?” Chuck asked hesitantly of Mako, sounding for all the world like a fourteen year seeing his idols in the distance. Mako nodded, and he could almost see her on the verge of tears.

“Yes,” she murmured. Maybe she knew. Ghost Drift and all.

His feet led him forward, Chuck moving out of the crowd. Because there they were, the Beckets, the American golden boys, walking into the Shatterdome with the dawn of a new Hong Kong morning on their back, the light casting a halo around their bodies. For all the world, they looked like nothing short of gods. And it was impossible. It was beautifully, completely impossible that either of them could still draw breath, when Yancy had died in the frigid Alaska coastline, and when Raleigh’s body lay cold in the morgue. But here they were. And whilst everyone else stayed still, Chuck moved forward into the light of the dawn, the sun falling across his face, almost blinding him.

He could still see them, though. The smiles on their faces as they shared a glance, and Raleigh looked so young, like he hadn’t when he’d arrived at the Shatterdome only a few days ago. The lines were gone, the weight lifted from his shoulders. And Yancy… he was older. He had aged since he’d last been seen, but naturally. He looked for all the world like a man in his late twenties. Like Knifehead had never even happened. It was a sight the world had never expected to see. And Chuck could see every inch of it.

And then, Raleigh saw him.

“Chuck?” Raleigh questioned as they drew closer, that same tone, slightly confused but hopeful all the same, that same timbre of voice, the recognition in his inflexion… Chuck heard every inch of it. It was enough. It was more than enough. That was Raleigh, it was really Raleigh, he was alive, somehow, despite everything, despite the hours Chuck had spent thinking he was dead. He’d thought he was dead. He’d _bled_ for Becket.

So Chuck did the only thing he could. He balled up his fist and planted his best right hook directly into Raleigh’s jaw. Raleigh recoiled slightly, the shock clear on his face.

“That’s for dying, you _arsehole_ ,” Chuck hissed, eyeing Raleigh harshly. Raleigh held up his hands in surrender, backing up slightly. Chuck examined him. God, he really did look better. Healthy. Flawless. His scars were gone too, Chuck noticed. The drivesuit burns had always been visible past the sleeves of Raleigh’s t-shirts, not that it had mattered with those dumb, lumpy sweaters he took to wearing everywhere. But the scars were gone. It was Raleigh, but it was a version of him that had never seen the world, never bled for it. It was Raleigh, but it definitely wasn’t the same Raleigh that had piloted Gipsy just two days ago.

“This some sort of Kaiju thing?” Chuck demanded, keeping his tone low, well aware that wasn’t exactly public knowledge. Raleigh almost looked guilty as he hesitated for a moment before nodding. Chuck’s eyes slid from the younger to the older, taking in Yancy, standing off to Raleigh’s right. “You as well?” he asked. Yancy shrugged, unapologetic.

“Don’t exactly get a choice in these things.”

“Yeah, well, you’re both fucking idiots,” Chuck commented glibly before turning around, heading back towards the Shatterdome. Mako was still standing there, hovering a few feet away. Chuck shot her a glance. “They’re all yours, Mori,” he said calmly.

It was as close to a thank you as they were ever going to get.

 

 

 

Someone had had the foresight to clear out LOCCENT. Chuck left things to Mako, but it was pretty clear her job was just to force the two idiots into the room and make them stay there. Chuck found Herc lingering as he walked back across the bay, who had told him where to go. He’d shifted pretty quickly after that. He had no desire to get into more discussions with his father, especially not right now. Not with everything that was going on. So he let them deal with the new arrivals. Or old ones, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

It didn’t take long to assemble everyone that needed to be there. Junior techs were thrown out and senior staff were brought in. Really, since the divorce from the UN, the PPDC was devoid of useless figureheads. But Stacker was there, waiting, and so was Tendo. The Weis, Sasha and Aleksis had all been released from the med bay in varying states of repair. Jin still had his leg in a cast, whereas Hu’s arm was taped up. Cheung was in a wheelchair, but he hadn’t seemed to let it put him off. From what Chuck had heard, they were still attempting to prank Sasha and Aleksis, managing to steal their bed sheets from the hospital when no one was looking. In fact, the five survivors of the bay looked good, if a little worse for wear. The science geeks were also there, and Chuck didn’t think he’d seen Newt Geiszler this excited since someone wheeled in that secondary Kaiju brain for him. But apart from that? The place was clear. At least until Herc and Mako arrived, closely followed by the Beckets. The room had never been so empty. And as the doors slid shut behind them, there was a sense of hesitation in the air. But this was a discussion that needed to be had, by all of them. They were running out of time. Running out of hope.

But the Beckets… maybe they were the something extra they’d been needing all along.

Raleigh and Yancy were still dripping wet, soaking in bay water, the black t-shirts clinging to their skin. Chuck couldn’t help but notice. Could you blame him, really? He was still curious about the lack of scars on Raleigh, scars even Chuck wore now. The EMP blast had caused plenty of electrical feedback. They were nothing like Raleigh’s had been, but the hairline circuit marks were etched into pieces of his skin. There would be worse to come, he was sure. That was, if they ever got back out there. They’d have to, though. The triple event wasn’t going to stop itself, and someone had to close the breach. The war clock was still ticking. How long they had left was another question.

Not long enough.

“Mr Becket,” Stacker said calmly, his eyes fixed on the formerly-dead Yancy, although technically, they were both walking miracles. To Yancy’s credit, he didn’t back down. People had always called Raleigh the headstrong one, but really, Chuck got the feeling Yancy Becket could be just as awkward if he felt like it.

“Marshall,” Yancy replied, equal levels of calm, seemingly unconcerned by the crowd, or the water still running down his skin. “I suppose you’ll be wanting an explanation.”

“It is a point of some interest, how one of my Rangers is lost at sea, and the other one is shot in the stomach and still lying in the morgue, and yet you both manage to be standing here.”

The brothers shared a look, and Raleigh seemed to gesture vaguely to Yancy. Some people didn’t look drift compatible. There had been a Korean team, they hadn’t seemed drift compatible at all when Chuck had met them. Others you assumed it was by virtue of appearance. The Gages, the Weis… they were identical. Of course they were drift compatible. But Chuck had never seen anyone like the Beckets, now that he saw them together in the flesh for the first time. The TV cameras had carried a little of it over, but this… it was like they were two halves of a whole. They read each other well. You could see it.

Maybe they’d been designed that way. Who knew?

Yancy took the floor, leaning against one of the desks, glancing around, doing his best to judge the atmosphere. Everyone seemed patient enough, although curious. Chuck was standing a little away from the main circle, arms folded stubbornly over his chest. He didn’t know what to think. He’d thought he had it all figured out. He’d wanted to think Raleigh was a monster. But he owed his life to Raleigh Becket. And that… that didn’t make you a monster. Maybe this was all a double cross. Maybe it was some elaborate plan they were all falling for and it would kill them all. But honestly? What did they have left to lose? They were doomed without the Beckets, so what did it matter if they were equally doomed with them? Raleigh had proved himself over the past few days and Yancy… Yancy owed them explanation, but he knew that. And Chuck, well, he was willing to trust them. Finally. And if he was willing to trust them, he would bet Striker that everyone else was. After all, they’d been willing to trust the Raleigh Becket that had been missing for five years, that had run away, that had severe mental trauma, that had been an unfit pilot. If they were willing to trust that man, why not this one? Why not one that had proved himself, proved himself committed, a survivor?

Assuming it was actually Raleigh they’d gotten back.

There was a moment of silence, a pause on the air, almost an audible holding of breath. This was an answer they hadn't even know they’d been waiting for. But now they knew… well, Chuck doubted there was a person here that didn’t want to hear it. Whatever that answer might be. And Yancy seemed to have no issues about giving it, leaving only the barest moment before beginning his story.

“The Kaiju are smarter than you gave them credit for. You always assumed the invasion started with Trespasser, but the truth is, it started long before then. Just in the places no one thought to look.

“Along with the Kaiju, the Precursors created four infiltrator models. They were based on old technology, and what little they could find out about humanity through the breach. They set up a cloning facility here, on Earth. The infiltrators were designed to go unnoticed, to blend in with humanity. It’s part of a battle plan. You send the infantry in to scope the field before you send in your heavy hitters. The infiltrators were the ones that picked the targets. San Francisco, Manila, Sydney… it was all planned. It was designed to weaken as wide an area as possible, to hit the population hardest. That's how they picked the most heavily populated cities. Those four gave them the information they needed. But they weren’t able to stand up to any sort of medical testing. They were early models, they were still too much like the Kaiju on the inside. They did their job. But then humanity did something they hadn’t counted on. It fought back.

“The Jaegers, the PPDC, the rebellion, it’s something they’ve never faced before, not on this scale. And so they adapted. They needed better infiltrators, a new weapon, something that could get into the system unnoticed. They tried to get what they needed through hacking, file theft. But it wasn’t enough. What they really wanted was the Jaegers.”

“So they made you,” Herc commented. It wasn’t a question. Yancy’s eyes met that of the older Ranger with a certain hesitance, and after a long moment, Yancy nodded.

“Raleigh and I were the product of a plan for the long game. They had information on the Academy, on the prospective students for pilots, about what the PPDC looked for. Our biology, our brains, everything had to stand up to scrutiny. We had to be human. So they did their homework. We were made to pass every test. The Infiltrators did most of the work, here, on Earth. They built us to age, to be injured, to be as human as possible. They made us to think like we were human. They built us lives, gave us memories of a childhood we’d never had. But they built us as a pair. They’d already stolen the brain scans of active pilots. They made us Drift Compatible. Any coding, any… pre-programming that demanded our loyalty to them was buried deep, so deep that we were just a couple of kids trying to be heroes.”

“You can’t _program_ compatibility,” Gottleib bristled.

“No, but they worked out how to build our lives. We were created together, they gave us a childhood together. They gave us the memories of happiness and of losing everything, and that sort of loss brings people together. They made us brothers, and we did the rest. They built us to have the best chance at getting in.”

“So what was the plan?” Stacker pressed. Yancy shook his head slightly.

“I don’t know. The intent was to have us ready… sleeper agents, if you like. We would stay until they needed the information, and then they’d trigger whatever they’d buried in our biology to bring us back to them. Then they’d have everything. Everything they needed to take down the Jaegers once and for all.”

“Is that what happened with Knifehead?” Chuck cut in. It sounded too perfect. The first Kaiju to show any signs of intelligence, and it just so happened to have gone for the Beckets? They’d been losing ever since then. Gipsy Danger had been the first of many to fall. It had been the end of an era. The beginning of the end. And it would end now, one way or another. But Chuck had to know. He had to know if they’d sold them out.

But from the pain that tightened Raleigh’s expression, from the way Yancy’s jaw clenched, Chuck could tell that wasn't what had happened at all.

“No. Knifehead was a mistake. Our mistake. Theirs too, I suppose. They made us _too_ human. We didn’t act like they expected. Knifehead meeting Gipsy was a mistake on their part. But that was the first Kaiju they’d developed with a new technique. It worked too well. We weren’t supposed to be anything other than perfect Rangers until they told us otherwise. But Rals and I… we lived our lives. Even if they had called us in, I doubt it would have worked. Every day we spent away was another one we became less like them, and after four years… it was too long. The Kaiju didn’t call us back that day. We just made a mistake.”

“A mistake you both paid more than enough for,” Mako interjected softly. She’d been standing beside Raleigh, and her hand extended to his shoulder. He smiled softly, covering her hand with his. She still had such faith in Raleigh, and by extension, Yancy. It was hard to doubt that. Mako wasn’t one for poor judgement. But there was still so much to answer. Faith didn't come easy. Not without a drift, anyway.

“I think we all wish to know how you survived,” Sasha volunteered, her eyes fixed on the elder Becket. Yancy smiled wryly, shrugging.

“Don’t you get it yet? I didn’t. They made us human. So when Knifehead tore into the conn…” Yancy’s eyes drifted to his brother. Chuck got the feeling they’d never talked about this. “The force of being lifted out of there and then hitting the water…. it shattered most of the bones in my body, including my neck. Even if I had survived that, I would have drowned. But the Precursors don’t waste their work. They made… a backup.

“Raleigh and I were created outside of the Hive Mind. We were made as individuals, although with a higher level of synchronicity than most. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t use the capability. They couldn’t risk losing us altogether. Even if we died early, they needed to somehow get the information back. So they used the Hive Mind to make a… central server. Think of it like a computer. If a laptop dies, then they wrote in a termination line that sends all the data back to the server. Then you can make a new copy using what you’ve got on the server. Just download it into a new shell.”

“Are you saying…” Newt started. Yancy nodded.

“Same person, new body. Death is an obstacle they overcame a long time ago. They built us once. They did it again. Better, though. These versions of us… they’re designed more like the Infiltrators. Less human. Stronger, faster, sharper… they wanted us to be the pinnacle of humanity. They just worked out the limitations of human biology a little better in the last few years.”

“But… that’s… oh my god… I mean, you… think of the _possibilities_ to begin with, the-” Newt began to ramble, but Hermann cut him off with a cane to the foot. Newt yelped in pain, glaring slightly at the other man. Yancy cracked a slight smile.

“That still leaves five years unaccounted for, Mr Becket,” Stacker reminded him. Yancy cleared his throat slightly, dragging his fingers through his still damp hair.

“The clones are kept in the facility. It’s moved a few times since it first came through, but it’s been situated in a remote area of Indonesia for a few years now. They keep all the spare bodies on ice there, as well as the uh… uploading technology. Everything that allows them to operate is there. When I died, that’s where I ended up. And the trouble with being outside the Hive is they couldn’t just take what they wanted. So they asked. And I said no. They’ve been holding me ever since. I guess they were hoping I’d change my mind with some persuasion.”

There was a moment of silence as the room seemed to realise what Yancy was inferring. No one wanted to say it though. So Chuck stepped forward, his arms dropping to his sides.

“They’ve been torturing you for _five years_?”

“They’ve been killing me for five years. They keep plenty of copies in the freezer.”

“Why? Why would you do that? You’re -”

“One of them?" Yancy shook his head gently. "They made us too human. They gave us something to fight for. And now… I won’t watch this planet die for them.”

“So how’d you get out?” One of the Weis spoke out, breaking the intervening silence. “Tell me it was good escape, Becket, you know we love a good story.” Yancy chuckled dryly.

“They’ve been sloppy lately. Just because we’re not in the Hive doesn’t mean we can’t access it. Otachi and Leatherback were under orders to destroy Cherno and Crimson. Striker was to be left - mostly out of curiosity, I think. They learned a little of the plan when you drifted with that brain, Newt.” Newt had the decency to flush red at that. “They wanted to see if you could do it, I think. Maybe they just wanted to see you fail. Either way, those were orders I tweaked.”

Seemed like saving lives was a Becket thing all in, then.

“Raleigh’s arrival wasn’t expected. It occupied them for a while. The process is automatic, but they still chose to pay more attention to that than to me. It was enough for me to break out. Managed to slide by unnoticed long enough to get Raleigh out too. Snuck onto a plane, stole a boat, and here we are.”

“So now what?” Chuck asked. Yancy shrugged leaning back.

“You tell me. I’m not the one in charge here,” Yancy replied, his eyes sliding very pointedly to Stacker. There was a slight pause.

“Doctors Gottleib, Geiszler, you retrieved the information on the Breach from the Drift?”

“The original plan isn’t going to work,” Hermann confirmed.

“The Breach uniquely identifies Kaiju biology when it’s allowin-” Newt began, but Herman cut him off, flustered slightly.

“Think of it like a barcode at the supermarket. If it matches, the Breach allows it to pass through.”

“So the bomb isn’t going to work?” Herc asked. Hermann shook his head.

“It demands Kaiju biology to get through.”

“Easy, shove the bomb down the next Kaiju’s throat and toss it through the other side,” Chuck suggested.

“We are expecting a triple event, Ranger Hansen, the numbers state -” Hermann began.

“Given that we just suffered a double event that took out two Jaegers, I think we can assume that things aren’t going to get better,” Herc interjected.

“Can we rig the bomb differently?” Tendo asked. Sasha shook her head.

“The payload is best suited to where it is now. It would take too long to adjust also.”

“Then how the hell are we gonna do this? We don’t close the breach and we’re all dead. We have to do _something_ ,” Chuck insisted.

“And we will,” Stacker interjected, voice firm as always. “Mr Becket, are you still drift capable?” Stacker asked of Yancy, and Yancy nodded without so much as a moment’s hesitation. “Good. Yancy, Raleigh, you two will be dropping in Gipsy. I want you to run defence for Striker. Give them every possible chance. You’re going to have to take on the Kaiju, but all it needs is one shot.”

“And what about Striker? I can’t pilot her alone,” Chuck insisted.

“And you won’t, Ranger Hansen,” Stacker pressed. Chuck could hear the reprimand in his tone. “You and Miss Mori will be testing for compatibility once we’re finished here. If that fails, then we will see about readjusting teams.”

Chuck’s eyes slid to Mako, and it was like his whole world was coming to a screeching halt. This was what he’d wanted, what they’d both wanted, years ago. They’d been in the Academy at different times, but they'd been close, and despite the gap they’d always assumed… but Scott had left rather hastily, Striker had come online, and suddenly he had a Jaeger before Mako had even finished her training. Chuck had talked himself into a hundred reasons why it was for the best… that Herc was more experienced, that they weren’t drift compatible, that it just wasn’t meant to be. Mako seemed anxious. Maybe he wasn’t wrong about those reasons after all.

“You all know the situation. We have work to do.”

And that was it. Discussion over. People seemed to fade out around him as Chuck stood there in a slight daze, wondering what the hell had just happened. It wasn’t until he heard someone calling his name that he realised he’d zoned out at all. His Dad. Who else?

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” he asked. Chuck shrugged.

“What do you think?”

He moved away before his father could answer, noticing Raleigh and Mako standing together near the door. Yancy was talking to Tendo, a smile on his face. It was still slightly surreal, but Chuck… god, he believed him. He believed every word out of Yancy Becket’s mouth, as crazy as it sounded. And all he had to do at the end of the day, was his job. Pilot the Jaeger. Finish the mission. It was that easy.

Mako saw him coming and smiled softly, moving out into the hall. No doubt they’d talk later. They had a lot to work out. But not right now - or so it seemed, since Chuck knew better than to chase after her. Raleigh turned, watching Chuck as he approached. He seemed hesitant.

“You gonna hit me again?” Raleigh eventually asked as Chuck drew nearer. Chuck snorted.

“Not unless you’re a bloody idiot again,” Chuck countered. He paused for a moment, glancing away. “You didn’t have to do that. What you did,” Chuck said, very non specifically. There was no question what he was referencing, though. Raleigh smiled softly.

“Yeah. I did,” he answered.

“You don’t need to keep saving my arse, Becket.” Chuck grumbled.

“But it is such a nice one,” Raleigh quipped, a smile curving his lips. Chuck’s eyes shot back to the blonde, widened in surprise. Chuck knew _he’d_ been looking, because god, it was bloody hard not to given that Raleigh was still in dripping wet clothes and those pants were sticking in all the right places, but he’d never for a second assumed Raleigh was… well… looking.

“Did you know?” Chuck pressed, choosing to ignore the comment as best as he could. “Did you know that you’d come back?” Raleigh hesitated for a moment, seemingly trapped by indecision. Then he sighed slightly, shaking his head.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Then why the hell were you willing to die for me, Becket?”

Raleigh shrugged, a faint smile on his lips. “Figured you were worth it.”

And then he pushed away, walking out to the corridor where he promptly tangled himself up with the Weis, bumping fists with Cheung as Jin made a swipe with his crutches. Chuck stood there, stunned for a moment until a hand collided with his back, clapping him fiercely. Chuck coughed, looking up to find Becket number two. Geeze, he hadn’t been kidding about the stronger part.

“What’d you want, Becket?” Chuck grumbled. Yancy smiled wryly.

“What, I can’t say hi to my biggest fan?”

“That was a long time ago,” Chuck hissed in reply. Chuck had never forgotten the single hour he’d met Yancy Becket, just after the triple drop in Manila. He’d been a kid, unable to hide his eagerness to see Gipsy in the flesh. Yancy clearly hadn’t forgotten either. He chuckled, his eyes drifting to his brother.

“He cares about you.” Yancy said.

“What? Raleigh?” Chuck asked, a frown forming on his face. Yancy nodded. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because it’s what he does, no matter how much he tries to hide it.”

“He hates me. Or at least he did,” Chuck countered.

“No, he didn’t.” He paused for a moment. “You’ve got more in common than you know.”

Maybe a few days ago, it would have made him furious, to be told he had anything in common with a Kaiju. But Raleigh… he’d said it himself. He was more than his biology. He was a good pilot, a good person - maybe better because of the fact he wasn’t even human. And maybe he’d taken a time to realise he’d been wrong, but…. he’d been wrong. Chuck knew that now.

He turned to watch Raleigh, who was now fending off what looked like nothing short of an attack by the Weis, although they were all laughing. It occurred to Chuck it was the first time he’d seen Raleigh properly smile since he’d gotten here.

It was an expression he wouldn’t mind seeing again.

 

 

 

It took them half an hour to make it to the Kwoon, and by the time he got there, Chuck knew for a fact he wasn’t ready for this. Mako had been his best friend, sure, but they’d been apart for a long time. Their relationship was getting back to how it should be, and they'd been talking a lot more, yes. But she’d only just established her partnership with Raleigh. Maybe the Beckets had had some of the best synchronicity scores in the entire program, but if he and Mako didn’t work together…

God, he wanted them to work, though.

The sparring itself wasn’t explosive - at least, it wasn’t as much of a show as the contest between Raleigh and Mako had been. But Chuck somehow managed to hold his own. It had been years since they’d trained together, and whilst they’d both changed so much in some ways, in others, nothing had changed at all. She was still as much of a perfectionist as he remembered, and he was still willing to take more risks than she was. Maybe it was recklessness, but they were different people. And that was good. It wasn’t that Mako was cautious, not all at. They were just differently balanced to her partnership with Raleigh. But Chuck wasn’t Raleigh Becket. And that was okay.

Either way, after fifteen minutes, neither of them could gain the upper hand for long, and they were declared fit for duty. Chuck could almost feel the few spectators burning holes into his back. Raleigh and Yancy were lingering somewhere - someone had found them dry clothes, and they’d been inseparable for every second since they arrived at the Shatterdome. His father had come to watch too, along with Stacker. And as he and Mako ended the bout, Chuck didn’t miss the looks the two men shared. He didn’t know if it was pride or trepidation.

Maybe a little bit of both.

As Mako offered him a hand up, Chuck sighed, taking it and getting to his feet. She made a point of bowing, and Chuck smiled softly, copying her actions.

“I guess this makes us drift compatible, then,” Chuck said smoothly. Mako smiled lightly.

“I suppose it does.” Chuck’s eyes slid back to Herc and Stacker.

“Who do you think’s more worried, Stacker or my Dad?”

“They’re only worried we’re going to break something like we did with that robot.”

“Hey, that was a great robot. Did exactly what it was supposed to.”

“It ruined the room.”

“Which was exactly what it was supposed to do.” Chuck grinned. They’d spent much of their time together as children, and no one had quite let them live down the time they’d built a scale model of a Jaeger out of some spare parts Herc had donated to them. It had been a really great robot. But it had also highlighted the danger of putting Chuck and Mako together for too long, a risk no one had been willing to repeat too hastily. More to the fact, after that incident, he and Mako had been sworn friends. It was one of their first bonding exercises. Somehow, things had just got tangled up along the way from there to now.

Mako glanced to the other side of the room, and Chuck followed her gaze, catching sight of Raleigh, nodding to her. There was a small smile on Mako’s face again. Chuck stepped up beside her, nudging her gently.

“It’s not too late to get the has-been back. I’ll see if I can knock his idiot brother into shape,” Chuck said lightly. Not too long ago, that statement would have carried a lot more venom. Now… well. They had all sacrificed a lot to be here. He could accept them here. Respect them, even. There was a risk, handing the Beckets a Jaeger. Maybe it had all been lies, maybe they were going to sabotage the plan. But apparently, Stacker thought it was better to have one reliable Jaeger than none. Either that or he knew something about the Beckets they didn’t.

It had been a pretty convincing story, though.

Mako shook her head softly, turning back to Chuck. “No. Raleigh needs his brother.”

“What about you. What do you need?”

“Someone I can trust,” she replied softly, looking at him pointedly.

“You trust him,” Chuck stated. She’d told him so herself. Mako smiled, nodding.

“Yes. But I trust you as well.”

Pausing for a moment, Chuck took a small step back, bowing once more, a smile on his lips as he switched to the appalling Japanese Mako had taken the time to teach him when they were young. He’d never been any good, but still, they’d persisted. He remembered enough, though.

“I would be honoured, Mori-san,” he murmured. Mako laughed slightly, and Chuck stood up straight as the humour sparkled in her eyes.

“Your Japanese never was very good,” she murmured.

“I don’t know why, I had an excellent teacher,” Chuck replied. She smiled.

“Thank you.”

Chuck had the feeling she was thanking him for more than just the compliment.

He might have pressed more, but it was if time had conspired against them. Or rather, as if they’d had just enough time. They were lucky, Chuck knew, to have had so long since the double event. Long enough to recover, regroup, to get Raleigh and Yancy back and prepare. Chuck was beginning to suspect the elder Becket had more of a hand in events than he’d been willing to detail, but that was okay. As long as they were on the same side. Chuck wasn’t sure he wanted to know how it all worked anyway.

All he needed to know was that the Kaiju alarm was blaring away, and as everyone froze, there was a slight pause before they knew it was time.

He shared a long look with Mako for a moment, before his eyes drifted to the Beckets. They couldn’t die. But him and Mako? There was a good chance they weren’t coming back from this. No doubt it was why Stacker had fought so hard against putting her in a Jaeger in the first place. It was as good as a suicide mission, three Kaiju and two Jaegers… but it had to be done. This was it. This would end it all. So Chuck exhaled heavily and nodded. “I’ll meet you up there?” Chuck suggested, noticing that Mako was lingering, her eyes fixed on Stacker. His father was already gone. Probably just as well. Mako nodded. Chuck reached out, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. She’d be okay. They all would.

Heading for the door, Chuck had every intention of heading directly for the drivesuit room. But as he stepped out, he found someone catching his arm, and before he knew it, Raleigh had pulled him aside. Chuck raised an eyebrow. It was the first time he’d left Yancy’s side since getting off the fishing boat. The elder Becket was nowhere in sight.

“Lost your shadow?” Chuck asked. “Or are you his?” Raleigh rolled his eyes slightly, shaking his head.

“Yance went ahead. They need to find him a drivesuit.”

“You’re not going with him?”

“I’ll go up in a minute.”

And then it struck him. Raleigh wanted to say goodbye. He’d saved his life more than once. And here was Raleigh, complete with a goodbye speech. God, that had to say something, if even Raleigh thought this was going to be a suicide mission. Wasn’t like he could die anyway. Or would the resurrection site still work with the Breach closed? Assuming they managed it.

“If you’ve got something to say, Ray, just say it.”

“It’s Raleigh,” he grumbled. Chuck smirked.

“Yeah, _Ra_ leigh? Forgive me if I don’t have time to waste on your ridiculous name, there’s a few Kaiju that need to get blown to bits.”

“You’re calling _my_ name ridiculous?” Raleigh retorted.

“It kind of is, mate.”

“It’s a city! Besides, look who’s talking.”

“Oi! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your name is Chuck.”

“Yes, well done for stating the obvious,” Chuck retorted.

“I’m honestly the only one seeing the problem there?” Chuck rolled his eyes.

“Better than option B, mate.”

“Which is?” Chuck ignored him, shaking his head slightly.

“What do you want, Raleigh?” he asked. Raleigh paused for a moment before shrugging.

“I want a lot of things.”

“What do you want right now?” Chuck pressed.

“Let’s just come back alive, yeah? Then maybe we can talk about what I want,” Raleigh suggested. He turned, ready to leave, but for some reason, Chuck was furious. Maybe he hadn’t been sure before, but they’d been dancing around this for a while. Maybe it hadn’t been long since they’d found Raleigh building a wall in Alaska, but a lot had changed in that time. Chuck had changed his mind about a lot. But so, he got the feeling, had Raleigh. And whilst Chuck hadn’t been sure, after that comment in LOCCENT… he liked to imagine he could read the situation. And if he couldn’t, well, he done stupider things. He’d probably be dead in an hour anyway. What did he have to lose?

So he reached, out, grabbed Raleigh’s wrist, and yanked him back, shoving him up against the wall. It was fairly quiet, with everyone preparing for the drop, which was a small relief. The only one. Chuck pressed closer, shutting out any illusion of personal space.

“What do you want, right now?” Chuck repeated. Raleigh exhaled heavily, glancing away.

“Chuck…”

“What? I’m probably going to be dead soon anyway. Don’t I get a proper goodbye?”

“You’re not going to die,” Raleigh countered softly.

“And what if I do? We’re not all aliens that get resurrected into perfectly sculpted bodies,” Chuck retorted, his gaze very pointedly running over Raleigh’s body. He’d found a white t-shirt somewhere, and really, it was doing him too many favours. Plus, Chuck still remembered what he looked like in black, soaking wet. It was an image he wasn’t in a hurry to forget.

“You’re not going to die,” Raleigh repeated firmly.

“What, you gonna save me again?” Chuck asked. Raleigh shrugged.

“Maybe. If I have to.”

“Then show me why,” Chuck challenged, pushing closer if that was any possible, hands braced against the metal of the wall. And Chuck didn’t know what he did or how he did it, but all he knew was that he could see Raleigh’s resolve crumble away right in front of his eyes. Because in less than a second, Raleigh surged forward, and his lips locked directly over Chuck’s.

For a moment, Chuck was too surprised to do anything, because despite his pushing, he hadn’t really expected it to work. But after that, it was too easy to give in, to let the fireworks explode in his brain, his body pushing forward, pressing Raleigh’s back against the wall. And for one, sweet, glorious moment, the Kaiju didn’t matter. The alarm didn’t matter, the operation didn’t matter. There was just Raleigh. And it was the most perfect moment in the world.

But all things had to end. And eventually, they broke away, mouths hovering irresistibly close.

“Come back alive,” Raleigh murmured, his voice in a low register that Chuck wished he’d heard before. “And then we’ll talk about what I want.”

Before Chuck could protest, Raleigh ducked under Chuck’s arm, heading down the hallway. Chuck stood there for a moment, slightly stunned before he came to his senses. He didn’t really know what made him say it. But he did anyway.

“It’s Charles,” he called. Raleigh frowned, turning back. He was confused, but Chuck didn’t make him ask. “Option B. It’s Charles.” Raleigh grinned, clearly thrilled.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Charlie,” he quipped in reply, and Chuck snorted, rolling his eyes.

God, he had it bad. But if he wanted anything more, he had Kaiju to kill. And well. He had a great incentive to come back now. All he needed to do was get Mako, go out there, and end this, once and for all.

The only down side he could see was that Mako was going to be smug as hell.

 

 

 

_You can finish this_.

That was what they’d said. Things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Three Kaiju were too much for two Jaegers, no matter what tricks Yancy had pulled. Chuck knew Gipsy was in a state of disrepair, and part of him and Mako wanted to go and help. But they were closer to the Breach. They’d never make it to Gipsy in time and finish the Operation. So that was Raleigh’s advice. Raleigh and Yancy. Finish it. Finish the job. End this.

And then they’d put Gipsy into nuclear meltdown. Self sacrificial assholes.

They’d at least at the good sense to eject out, which was just as well or Chuck might have needed to throttle them about taking unnecessary risks because hey, dying must be real fun when you get dumped in a new body, right? But Gipsy was a time bomb on the ocean floor, and whilst it had damaged one of the Kaiju, whilst Gipsy had already killed the second outright, there was still the third. And they still needed to get the bomb into the Breach. They both knew that. It was all that mattered right now. Finishing it.

They had the Kaiju corpse. All they needed to do was shove the bomb down it’s throat and send it back. Reaching out to deploy the bomb, Chuck’s hand was halfway to the activation switch when they were hit from the side, the last remaining Kaiju barrelling into them. Lashing out with the blades, Chuck knew they’d hit home the second Striker responded. But she was damaged badly, and the force of the impact had them falling into the Breach. More to the fact, the air seemed thinner, like he couldn’t breathe. And all he knew was that it wasn’t right. He’d wanted to end this. But Mako… he trusted her. Just like she’d asked what felt like a lifetime ago.

So when he blacked out, it was with every faith in the world that it would end. And maybe a small feeling that he wouldn’t be waking up.

But then there was something hard hitting his chest, and he coughed, eyes flashing open as he struggled for room. When he came to his senses, he managed to look up, and gaze around. They were in the middle of the ocean. Raleigh was sitting on top of his escape pod, and barely a few feet away, Mako and Yancy sat side by side on top of a second. The water around them was stained green with dye designed to flag down a rescue, and Chuck gazed around, trying to work out what had happened. Then he looked to Mako, almost afraid to ask.

“Did we…?”

Her face cracked into a smile, and she nodded.

“We did it. We won.”

 

 

 

By that night, Chuck was sitting in the med bay after a final check over, having been declared to be perfectly fine. There was an air of celebration everywhere. When Chuck arrived off the chopper, his father had instantly swept him up into a hug that, despite only being one armed, was the fiercest display of affection he’d shown in years. Maybe that goodbye speech had changed them both. Chuck knew he wanted to change things between him and his father… but it wouldn’t happen overnight. At least they had a start, though. At least that had something to go from. Stacker had been waiting for Mako, too. Chuck didn’t think he’d ever seen the man so proud, or Mako so emotional. But he’d been in her head. He knew how important it was to her. Their relationship… maybe there was no cure for cancer just waiting around for them. But any extra time Mako had with her adoptive father was a gift. Especially for the first time in what seemed like centuries, the threat of the Kaiju was just… gone.

They’d all been declared heroes, and the Shatterdome was in a state of open jubilation. And yet somehow, Chuck was a little more pensive than everyone around him seemed to be. The Jaegers, the PPDC… it had been his whole life. And now it was just… over. He was reluctant to leave the med bay, almost like he was stepping into a new world or something. But he wasn’t alone.

For the first time, he was glad of that.

“Are you-”

“If you ask if I’m alright one more time, Becket, I’m going to punch you so hard I'll break your jaw,” Chuck threatened. Raleigh cracked a faint smile.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Raleigh replied, leaning against the wall as he waited for Chuck to get up, tugging his shirt back on. “You seem off, that’s all.” Chuck sighed, rolling his shoulders a little.

“You caught that, huh?” he asked. Sometimes, Raleigh’s powers of observation surprised him. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised by Raleigh Becket any more, not after everything. And yet... “Just… sort of feels like the end of an era, y’know?”

“Yeah. Could be the start of a new one, though. Still got a few things to clear up. Yancy doesn’t think the facility in Indonesia should be able to operate without the Breach, but he wants to go make sure.”

“Does that translate to asking the Russians for more bombs?” Raleigh chuckled.

“Maybe,” he confessed. Chuck sighed, shrugging.

“Guess I don’t know what to be if I’m not a Jaeger pilot. Never thought I’d get to do anything else.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Honestly? I haven't got a clue,” Chuck confessed.

“Then maybe now’s the time to find out,” Raleigh suggested. After a moment, he reached out, taking Chuck’s hand in his. Chuck looked up, hesitant. Somehow, he still wasn’t confident about this at all. Had to be the first time, though. Maybe that was good, though. Either that or Mako was rubbing off on him. Raleigh seemed to sense that too, though, squeezing gently. “I think I promised you I’d tell you what I wanted.”

“Yeah. You did,” Chuck agreed. “I think I decided you don’t need to say it, though.”

“Oh?” Raleigh asked. Chuck nodded.

“Yeah. See, us regular old humans have something called intuition.” Raleigh smiled.

“Really? Never knew that before,” he murmured, playing along. He gently tugged Chuck closer, a simple gesture that Chuck had to restrain a smile at. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Maybe I should be asking you that. Got a giant blue tongue I need to know about or something?” Chuck asked, slowly reaching out with his other hand for Raleigh's shoulder, resting his arm there. Raleigh chuckled.

“Nah. Not that I noticed.” he told him. Chuck’s eyes drifted to Raleigh’s free shoulder, where bright, new electrical scars peeked out from under his shirt.

“See you got your scars back, though,” Chuck commented. Gipsy’s arm had been ripped off in the fight, along with other damage. Figures, that Raleigh would never really lose those marks for long. Raleigh shrugged.

“Guess some things are meant to stay with you.” He paused. “Is it a problem?”

“Nah. Makes you look pretty hot,” Chuck quipped lightly. Raleigh laughed.

“So what’s it telling you? That intuition of yours.”

“That maybe there’s a few things to look forward to. But first, I’m getting blind drunk, and you’re gonna help me,” Chuck told him.

“Sure thing, Charlie.”

“Oh shut it, you bloody Yank.”

"You gonna make- " Raleigh began, before Chuck pressed forward, effectively ending the conversation with a kiss.

Maybe Chuck Hansen would always hate the Kaiju.

But only most of them.


End file.
